Investigators probing the fatal police shooting of a Mexican national in Pasco, Washington, last week on Thursday asked for more witnesses or anyone who recorded the incident to come forward.
The three police officers involved in the shooting of Antonio Zambrano-Montes, 35, near a busy intersection at 5 p.m. Feb. 10 were not wearing body cameras, investigators said. But some bystanders captured the incident on video, some of which show the shooting in detail, and more videos have come in since the shooting.
"The more information we have, the better," said Kennewick Police Sgt. Ken Lattin, a spokesman for the Tri-City Special Investigations Unit, which is investigating the shooting.
The shooting has inspired protests in Pasco, a town of about 68,000 people of which a little more than half are Hispanic. The Mexican government has criticized the shooting as an excessive use of deadly force. Franklin County Prosecuting Attorney Shawn Sant said his office has a program designed to help cooperating witnesses who are undocumented with any immigration cases brought against them.
"It doesn’t grant citizenship, it doesn’t grant legal status, but it’s a tool that we use to indicate to the immigration and customs folks that this individual has cooperated with law enforcement," he said.
Pasco police have said the officers shot Zambrano-Montes after he pelted officers with rocks, and after a Taser had no effect. Lattin said that from the video, it appears all three officers fired their weapons, but that has not been confirmed by the state crime lab, which is treating the case as a priority.
Lattin said investigators would also be looking at Zambrano-Montes’ whereabouts in the two weeks before the shooting, and whether he had mental problems. "The actions were not normal, not reasonable … why?" Lattin said.
IN-DEPTH
- Coroner Launches Inquest in Fatal Pasco Police Shooting
- Latino Group Calls for Justice Department to Get Involved After Pasco Shooting
- Rock-Throwing Man Killed By Police in Pasco Had No Other Weapons