MARTINEZ — The manslaughter case against a Contra Costa Sheriff’s deputy charged in a 2018 on-duty shooting survived its first legal test Tuesday, when a county judge blamed the killing on the deputy before ordering him to stand trial at a yet-to-be determined date.
Judge Terri Mockler ordered Dep. Andrew Hall, to stand trial on a felony charge of voluntary manslaughter in the killing of 33-year-old Laudemer Arboleda, of Newark, whom Hall shot during a slow-speed pursuit in November 2018. While acknowledging “there is an argument to be made that this was self-defense,” Mockler was unsympathetic to Hall’s actions during the “critical moment,” when Hall ran around his own patrol car to face Arboleda’s silver Honda, which was navigating between two patrol cars that were attempting to stop him.
“I did not see an attempt to directly hit Deputy Hall,” said Mockler at Hall’s Tuesday preliminary hearing. “Deputy Hall, by his own actions, put himself in Harm’s way.”
Mockler dismissed count two against Hall — assault with a semiautomatic firearm — but that was more due to an unforced prosecutorial error; assistant district attorney Chris Walpole failed to ask any witness if Hall’s duty pistol was, in fact, a semiautomatic firearm. Mockler indicated she would have upheld a felony assault based on what she saw Tuesday.
Mockler’s assessment of the shooting directly contradicted the way Sheriff David Livingston attempted to frame Hall’s actions in the face of scrutiny that followed the 2018 shooting, saying that Hall fired to prevent Arboleda from running him over and murdering him. Hall was cleared by internal sheriff probe, returned to duty, and last March shot and killed a second man, 32-year-old Tyrell Wilson, who brandished a knife and took a small step toward the deputy.
Check back for updates.
Source:: The Mercury News – Latest News
Stock Market: Suez Canal Update! Floating!
The Suicide Squad | Official IMAX® Red Band Trailer
From the horribly beautiful mind of James Gunn and filmed in IMAX. Experience