Modesto moves toward civilian review of police. Why Stanislaus County should, too

On Dec. 29, 2020, a Modesto police officer shot and killed a young man. Within days his family and friends were at Modesto intersections and City Council meetings. Some protest signs said things like: “Trevor Seever, Say His Name.” Within three months, the officer was fired and charged with manslaughter.

On Sept. 27, about three months before the Modesto killing, Stanislaus County sheriff’s deputies shot and killed a middle-aged man under at least questionable circumstances. Not only has no action taken place since then but no resolution appears imminent. There have been no public protests. Nobody has been saying Eloy Gonzalez’ name. Unless this counts.

Protests over the Modesto Police Department killing may be causing the City Council to look into some oversight of their agency. Will the Sheriff’s Department receive more such scrutiny from the county Board of Supervisors?

In both cases, the respective agencies have released all or portions of body cam videos capturing the shootings. In both cases, the only witnesses were employees of those agencies. Why did one incident move quickly toward resolution while the other could be months away?

Here are the basic facts:

On Dec. 29, Seever’s family calls police, telling the dispatcher of a telephone call from Trevor in which he said he bought a gun and vaguely threatened the family and, perhaps, police officers.

Officer Joseph Lamantia spots Trevor behind a church in west Modesto. He steps out of his patrol car, pulls his handgun and shouts an order to Trevor, who is walking away, and immediately begins firing. He fires two sequences from two different positions, the last sequence as Trevor appears to be kneeling, facing the officer with both hands in the air some of the time and with his right arm slumping down in others.

Tragedy at hands of Stanislaus deputies

On Sept. 27, an an alarm company calls in a possible break-in at a paper shredding company in the Beard Industrial District. Two deputies encounter Gonzalez in a nest of cardboard behind waist-high bushes at the south end of the building. The deputies didn’t know then, and we still do not know now, whether Mr. Gonzalez was a would-be burglar or a homeless man sleeping rough (the break-in alert was a false alarm).

Mr. Gonzalez raises his arms but does not follow the command to come out from behind the bushes and lay face down in the dirt. This standoff continues until another deputy looses his police dog to attack Gonzalez. He then waves a hatchet, so the dog handler and one other deputy begin firing. The hatchet had apparently been among the man’s possessions but he didn’t reach for it until the dog attacked.

While relatively new laws require disclosure of reports of law enforcement shootings, an exception allows the reports to remain secret while criminal charges still are being investigated or, if filed, are still pending. In the Seever case, the DA says no information will be released until revealed during court proceedings. County counsel says no documents will be released on the Gonzalez shooting until late August.

Mayor Sue Zwahlen and at least one city councilman have expressed support for more oversight of their officers. What will it take for county supervisors to stand up?

This story was originally published April 5, 2021 at 4:00 AM.