Modesto officer on leave in fatal shooting among officers now under scrutiny in 2016 shooting
As Modesto and its Police Department face growing public pressure to fire an officer who shot an unarmed man in December, a civil claim has been filed against the city in another fatal shooting involving the same officer as well as two others.
The claim is for the 2016 shooting of 52-year-old Kim Jackson, an intoxicated, suicidal woman armed with knives who had run at one of the officers in the street by her parents’ home. The officer shot her from about a dozen feet away as he told her to back off.
The officer is Joseph Lamantia, the same officer who fatally shot Trevor Seever on Dec. 29 on the grounds of the Church of the Brethren in west Modesto.
The claim in the October 2016 shooting alleges wrongful death, excessive force and negligence and was filed Jan. 21.
Modesto spokesman Thomas Reeves emailed this comment regarding the claim: “The city takes such a claim for alleged excessive force very seriously and is in the process of carefully and fully evaluating this claim in accordance with the law.”
Claims ordinarily have to be filed within six months of the incident, but Sacramento attorney Mark Merin, who represents Jackson’s family, said the family only learned in November that, as he asserts in the claim, the shooting was not justified, improper tactics and ammunition were used and police “actively concealed from the public critical details of the shooting which demonstrated its unreasonable nature.”
He said police failed to reveal that one of the officers — Sgt. Alex Bettis — shot Jackson with a lethal round from his shotgun. Bettis thought he had loaded his shotgun with nonlethal beanbag rounds, but one of the rounds was what is called a breaching round, which is used to destroy door locks and deadbolts but can be fatal when used against people.
The Internal Affairs investigation of the shooting cites Jackson’s autopsy stating Lamantia’s shot and Bettis’ breaching round were fatal and Jackson died from blood loss from both gunshots.
The Stanislaus County district attorney’s office concluded the officers were justified and had acted in self defense. The office said Jackson was determined that the officers shoot her. The district attorney’s office summarized its findings in a July 2018 letter to then Police Chief Galen Carroll. According to the letter:
Jackson’s father called 911 twice in the early morning of Oct. 8, 2016, first because she was drunk and vandalizing his home and again when she returned two hours later armed with knives. She hid from officers the first time they arrived, but by the second time she was saying “she will make police shoot her.”
Officers use Taser, bean bags and gun
Besides Lamantia and Bettis, the third officer who responded was officer Michael Callahan. The letter states the three appeared to plan to try to deescalate the incident through the use of nonlethal force. Callahan was armed with a Taser, Bettis with the beanbag shotgun and Lamantia with a handgun.
Callahan can be heard on body-camera footage telling Jackson to put the knives down, but she responded “something to the effect of you’re going to have to shoot me,” according to the letter. Seconds later, Jackson raised the knives over her head and charged Lamantia. All three discharged their weapons.
The autopsy showed Jackson had a blood alcohol level of 0.22% and had a significant amount of methamphetamine in her system.
Merin’s office provided The Bee with body camera footage from the three officers. It shows all of the shooting took place in about three seconds, and Jackson charged Lamantia with her arms raised with the knives in her hands.
The claim states and the footage shows that after Lamantia shot Jackson once in the chest, she dropped the knives and turned and staggered away from the officers. Lamantia shot her a second time, grazing her in a forearm. Callahan fired his Taser striking Jackson in the left wrist and Bettis fired two rounds from his shotgun. The letter from the district attorney’s office does not mention that one round was the breaching round.
Besides authorities’ failure to disclose that Jackson had been shot by a breaching round, Merin alleges in the claim the officers did not develop a plan for how they would approach and detain Jackson, did not use appropriate deescalation techniques, and Bettis was out of position when he shot Jackson, and the breaching round struck her in the back.
While the Police Department ruled the shooting was within its policy, the Internal Affairs investigation raised questions regarding Bettis’ actions. The investigation found while he understood Jackson was a danger he failed to impart that to the other officers, and he mistakenly put a breaching round in his shotgun.
“As the supervisor at the scene, Sgt. Bettis used his training and experience to correctly perceive the threat he and his officers were facing,” the Internal Affairs investigation states. “... However, none of this was communicated to Officer Callahan or Officer Lamantia who felt very differently about the situation.”
The investigation recommended changing department policy to have a second officer witness the loading of beanbag rounds into shotguns when possible but no other training because Bettis had gained employment with another agency.
Bettis now works for the district attorney’s office and attempts to reach him were not successful.
The Bee obtained the Internal Affairs investigation through a California Public Records Act request.
‘Best laid plans fall apart ... ‘
The Bee asked a nationally known use of force expert to review the shooting. Phil Stinson, a criminologist at Bowling Green State University in Ohio and a former police officer, agreed with the district attorney’s office the shooting was legally justified.
“She had knives, and she is coming at the officer,” Stinson said, adding this was a volatile and tragic encounter between Jackson and the officers.
He said it would be a different matter if Jackson had been standing in front of the officers holding the knives when they shot her, but she was running and flailing her arms overhead as she charged them. “The best laid plans fall apart when someone comes running out with a knife,” he said.
But he said the claim — which can be the first step before filing a lawsuit — raises legitimate issues worth pursuing, including authorities not disclosing the breaching round and whether officers could have been better trained to deal with Jackson.
And while the district attorney’s office reviewed the shooting as a criminal matter, Jackson’s family is pursuing this as a civil matter, in which it has to meet a lesser legal standard to prevail. Merin said the family would not comment for this story.
December shooting under review
Lamantia was alone when he shot Seever in December. Stinson previously reviewed Lamantia’s body camera footage from that shooting and found it troubling. Officers were responding to a report from Seever’s family that he had said he had bought a gun the night before and had threatened his family.
But Seever, 29, was not armed.
Lamantia appears to start shooting Seever from 40 to 50 yards away, eventually firing seven times in rapid succession. Stinson has said Lamantia had other options before shooting first, including following Seever at a safe distance.
Lamantia remains on paid administrative leave while the shooting is under review. Interim Police Chief Brandon Gillespie has said the investigation is a top priority for his department, and it is working as quickly as it can to conclude it.
But that has not stopped Seever’s family, community members and community groups, including Turlock Black Lives Matter, to repeatedly demand the firing and prosecution of Lamantia, who did not respond to several previous requests for comment.
Including these two shootings, Lamantia has been involved in four fatal officer-involved shootings since 2010 as a Modesto police officer. He joined the department in 2008 in his first job in law enforcement.
This story was originally published February 18, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
