Contra Costa County, California, District Attorney Diana Becton, who was backed by left-wing billionaire George Soros, charged a sheriff’s deputy Wednesday in a shooting from 2018 after the same officer shot an armed suspect last month.
The charges against Deputy Andrew Hall alsocame the day after a Minnesota jury convicted former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin of murder and manslaughter in the death of George Floyd.
In 2018, Hall shot and killed 33-year-old Laudemer Arboleda during a high-speed pursuit. As the Associated Pres (AP) notes:
In the 2018 incident, the 33-year-old Arbodela was killed after leading officers on a slow chase through Danville. Sheriff’s Department video shows Hall stopping his patrol car, getting out and running toward the sedan driven by Arboleda. Hall then opened fire and continued to shoot as Arboleda’s car passed by, striking Arboleda nine times.
Hall later testified at an inquest that he was afraid Arboleda would run him over.
The San Jose Mercury News added: “The details of Hall’s case suggest it might be more difficult to convince a jury of his guilt — the incident unfolded swiftly, and Hall has claimed he believed his life was at risk.”
Last month, Hall was involved in another incident in which he confronted 33-year-old Tyrell Wilson, who was apparently throwing rocks at cars from an overpass, and was armed with a knife. Body camera footage released Wednesday “shows the deputy call out to Tyrell Wilson, 33, then shoot him within seconds of asking Wilson to drop his knife,” the AP reported.
Contra Costa County Sheriff David Livingston said that Hall’s actions in the Wilson case were justified. But attorney John Burris, who is representing the families of both Wilson and Arbodela, said that Wilson would still be alive if Hall had been punished for Arbodela’s death.
In contrast, Hall’s attorney said that the charges against his client, including voluntary manslaughter and assault with a semiautomatic firearm, seemed political, given the timing.
Becton’s campaign received roughly $50,000 from Soros in the 2018 election through the California Justice & Public Safety Political Action Committee. She was one of the only successful candidates Soros backed in DA races in California that year, when he chose “progressive” prosecutors to run against establishment candidates, often fellow Democrats.
Since then, Soros has continued to back left-wing prosecutors around the nation in an effort to push criminal justice reform.
Last year, Becton charged a couple with a “hate crime” for painting over a “Black Lives Matter” mural on a road in Martinez, California.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. His recent book, RED NOVEMBER, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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