Investigators from two police departments are probing the fatal shooting of a well-known resident and local rapper in Vallejo by an off-duty Richmond police officer. Relatives and friends identified the man as Eric Reason, 38, a rapper who worked in construction, had six children and was widely known in Vallejo.
Surveillance video from a busy parking lot in Northern California captures a tense dispute flaring into violence when an off-duty police officer fired his weapon at a man running away, leaving him mortally wounded and raising questions over the need for deadly force.
The city of Vallejo released four videos Tuesday giving alternate viewpoints of the Nov. 10, 2019, incident in a busy strip mall.
In the video, which has no audio, Richmond Police Sgt. Virgil Thomas appears to drive toward an empty parking spot just as Reason pulls away from a nearby gas station pump. After Thomas parks, Reason stops his van several feet behind and steps out. They get in each other’s faces for a few seconds, the video shows.
Reason then walks away and appears to grab an object from the hood of his van. He goes back to Thomas, who pulls out a weapon and fires, appearing to shoot out a back window of Reason’s car.
At that moment, Reason runs away and Thomas continues to fire at him in the parking lot, even advancing closer to Reason before the video cuts off.
Vallejo police said Reason was armed and had retrieved a rag containing a handgun from his van when he confronted Thomas.
Thomas is a former president of the Richmond Police Officers Association.
From the beginning, according to former law enforcement officer turned civil rights attorney Melissa Nold, police didn’t follow standard protocol. Thomas reaped advantages that aren’t typically granted, Nold said. “Officer-involved shootings require the person who shoots to have their gun removed. They’re taken off-scene. They’re sequestered,” Nold told KCBS Radio. “He actually got benefits that are far above what they would even give an officer in officer-involved shootings. In fact, I’ve never seen anything like this in my own personal law enforcement training and my eight years in working in police misconduct, specifically.”
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