Closing arguments are underway in the trial of a former Los Angeles Police Department officer charged in the shooting death of a developmentally disabled man in a Southern California Costco.
Salvador Alejandro Sanchez, 33, of Corona, is charged with voluntary manslaughter and two counts of assault with a semiautomatic firearm. He additionally faces sentence-enhancing allegations of using a firearm and causing great bodily injury.
The victim's parents were wounded in the June 2019 shooting inside the store in the Riverside County community of Corona. Kenneth French, 32, was killed.
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Sanchez was off-duty at the time. In the summer of 2020, the Los Angeles Police Commission determined the Costco shooting was an unjustifiable use of force, and Sanchez was fired from the LAPD.
The French family was shopping at the store when they stopped at a food sample table, where the defendant was also standing, holding his son, Deputy Attorney General Michael Murphy said in opening statements. For unknown reasons, Kenneth French punched the defendant in the back of the head and stepped back from him.
Murphy began his closed argument in court by telling jurors that when someone chooses to carry a gun, they also choose to carry the power of life and death, which requires great responsibility because they have an obligation to make a reasonable assessment before aiming a gun and shooting it at a human being. The defendant's alleged decision to kill the victim, who was unarmed as he was being pushed away by his father, was not reasonable, according to Murphy.
Sanchez didn't make a reasonable assessment of the situation and immediately created a false narrative in his head about what happened, including about his belief that he was shot, that the victim had a gun, and that he fell unconscious after being struck in the back of the head. A reasonable person in his position, after being struck in the back of the head, would have instead said something along the lines of "What the heck?" before feeling the back of their head to see if there was an injury, Murphy said.
Video captured the chaotic moments after the shooting.
“Are you injured?” Corona Police Officer Robert Slane asked Sanchez as he entered the chaotic shooting scene moments after the gunfire.
“No, I guess not, I thought I got shot in the back of my head,” Sanchez said.
Murphy added that the defendant realized that what he did was unreasonable and as a result, lied about being knocked unconscious and when he went into the District Attorney's Office when he said he saw a gun pointed at his head.
"This did not need to happen for self protection or to defend his son and it shouldn't have happened," Murphy said. "The defendant needed only to take a few moments to check himself to see if he had a gunshot wound and realize that he did not."
Murphy concluded his closing argument by asking jurors to find the defendant guilty of all the charges based on the evidence.
Sanchez's attorney, Michael Schwartz, began his closing argument shortly before the end of the court day and gave jurors an overview of what he planned to tell them Wednesday morning when the trial resumed. He told jurors that when prosecutors prove something they have to do it beyond a reasonable doubt, like when Murphy presents a fact.
Sanchez was diagnosed with an injury and prescribed with narcotics to take home and the records to prove that will be shown to jurors Wednesday, Schwartz said. And in the moment, the defendant was acting in self defense and only had a few seconds to react to the danger because the most vulnerable victim was his son and if he had taken time to confirm whether the victim had a gun and he did end up having one, he would have been dead by the time he found out.
Schwartz also told jurors that on Wednesday he will discuss what prosecutors didn't mention, which was testimony from parents Russell and Paola French because their statements were opposite from what he claims happened.
"When we come back in the morning, let's talk about what this case is really about. It's about a father defending his 20-month-old son from a vicious wild attack," Schwartz said.
While on the ground after being struck on the back of the head, the victim's parents pleaded with the defendant to not shoot their son because he was sick, but Sanchez ignored their pleas, aimed his gun at them and pulled the trigger, Murphy said. Paula French was shot first, once in the stomach, her husband was hit once on his side and their son was shot four times in the back.
Kenneth French was taken out of the store in a body bag and his parents were taken for emergency treatment while the defendant was seen in an officer's body-worn camera video being escorted out without assistance, Murphy said. Sanchez requested to be taken to a hospital, where a doctor found no injuries, but still diagnosed him with a concussion due to Sanchez's claim that he lost consciousness.
The Riverside County District Attorney's Office in September 2019 took the matter to a 19-member county grand jury, and the panel declined to indict Sanchez, culminating in the California Department of Justice ultimately filing charges.
The French family filed a lawsuit against the department, the city of Los Angeles and Sanchez at the end of 2019, alleging negligence and civil rights violations. A Los Angeles jury in November 2021 ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, awarding them $17 million.
NBCLA's Jonathan Lloyd contributed to this report.
