Ceres cop Ross Bays should have faced charges for shooting fleeing boy in the back
A jury should have decided whether a crime was committed when Ceres Police Officer Ross Bays killed a 15-year-old by shooting the teen in the back as he fled.
Would 12 people, presented with facts, determine the policeman had good reason to do what he did? Or might they conclude that Bays made a terrible decision and should account for it?
We’ll never know. Stanislaus County District Attorney Birgit Fladager removed the possibility of a jury trial Thursday by formally refusing to file charges against Bays.
The Modesto Bee Editorial Board previously noted that of all the options at Bays’ disposal on that warm August day in 2018, he chose the very most extreme.
Bays might have shouted a command to stop as Carmen Spencer Mendez tried to run away.
Bays might have sent the K9 in the back seat of his patrol car after the boy. That’s what police dogs are trained to do.
Bays might have waited for other officers to arrive. They did, in less than a minute.
What did Bays do? Wordlessly, within three seconds of opening his patrol car door, he started shooting and did not stop until his magazine was empty.
In a six-page letter explaining why she won’t charge Bays, Fladager recounted what he knew when he decided to pull the trigger, including the fact that people in the car Bays was chasing were presumed to be armed and dangerous and suspected of serious crimes.
That the boy had a gun “was a significant factor in (Bays’) thought process,” Fladager wrote.
Bays sensed an ambush, even though it wasn’t. And, “Bays believed that Mendez started to run towards him,” even though he didn’t, Fladager wrote. The fact that Bays was wrong on both accounts doesn’t matter, in Fladager’s judgment.
In her report, Fladager completely ignored the K9 and the lack of verbal warning. She did not mention that Mendez was fleeing into a field of saplings outside of Denair, not toward stores or housing where others might be in danger; she did note that the officer believed Mendez could pose “a serious threat to those in nearby farms.”
Was this shooting clearly justified?
It’s common for agencies to settle wrongful death lawsuits brought by survivors of those killed in lethal-force incidents, even when they’re justified, to clear them off the books. That Ceres agreed to pay $2.1 million out of court, as it did to Mendez’s family, indicates the city knew it would be taking a big risk if the civil lawsuit were to go to trial.
In other words, the shooting was not clearly justified. It was fuzzy at best.
When a lethal-force case is fuzzy, a jury — not the DA — should decide. That’s why we have courts.
This story was originally published December 29, 2019 at 5:00 AM.
