Thread by @sahrasulaiman

So... Villanueva is handling this well

https://twitter.com/sahrasulaiman/status/1306684646994845696

This 3 p.m. press conference on the murder of #DijonKizzee is about to be a serious sh*t show. I feel like I need to get my bingo card ready.

Watch along with me:

https://twitter.com/NBCLA/status/1306714728127848448

Quick update on the shooting of the deputies. He says they have "numerous and substantial leads," but no names. They're also looking for the bystander seen in the video - as a witness.

Moving on to the update.

Reminds folks the Westmont Community was called "Death Alley" by the L.A. Times.

It was... but it wasn't. It was a detective that called it that. The LAT just did the community the major disservice of headlining their story with that label.

Oh sh*t in the time that was taken to write that tweet, he's done.

Before departing, he showed some violent crime statistics and maps, including gun crimes, and essentially says, now you know why we police this way.

This was one of the slides - 12 homicides since the beginning of the year. The dot in the center is approximately where Kizzee was killed.

If there were 12 homicides in 9mos within such a small radius in communities north of the 10, you'd actually have heard about it before now... just something to consider while assessing his tone/the way info about Kizzee is presented.

Other slides include the assaults with a deadly weapon (often shootings) at left and arrests of folks with guns (likely gun charges for possession) at right.

This is what this community looks like, unfortunately... [Residents are] surviving almost in a warzone...So when somebody asks what we're doing in this community, or why we're stopping and detaining individuals. This should give you a clear idea of what we're doing."

oops, botched that last quote slightly.

Anyways. Says it is very difficult to keep people alive when they're being defunded and undermined by the Board of Supervisors.

Capn Ken Wagner from homicide is up. And he's here to underscore the "he's no angel" narrative.

Wagner still maintains deputies tried to detain Kizzee for a bike violation. Then, Kizzee refused to stop, rode off until he fell off the bike, and then made a run for it.

Deputies returned to their radio car and began checking the area for him, says Wagner. Folks might remember this scene in one of the bystander videos where deputies are walking in one direction and Kizzee is awkwardly hustling away in the other.

Kizzee was restricted from owning or carrying a firearm because of a restraining order and a past felony conviction, says Wagner. However, as Kizzee fled, Wagner continues, he was in possession of a 9mm semi automatic pistol wrapped in his clothing.

When they caught up to him on 109th, deputies didn't know he had a weapon. One got out of the car and tried to detain him. Kizzee "briefly" raised his hands with his clothing in his hands as he moved away from the deputy.

As the deputy approached him, "he lowered his hands and struggled with the deputy, ultimately throwing punches into the deputies face."

*deputy's sorry

"During the struggle, Kizzee's pistol fell to the ground between him and the deputy. At this moment, the deputy saw the gun and drew their pistols as Kizzee stopped, bent over, reached back, and picked up the pistol."

This is the first time they have said he "picked up" the pistol.

Prior to this, Kizzee produced the gun, detectives spotted the gun, Kizzee made a motion toward the firearm... but he had never been said to have touched it.

So I wanna correct this quote because it is important... he is saying at that moment the *DEPUTIES* plural saw the gun and drew their pistols. Because it is categorically untrue.

https://twitter.com/sahrasulaiman/status/1306724036408352770

If you watch the video, grainy as it is, there is only one dep. who could have possibly seen the gun on the ground - the one who was struggling with him. In the video, it appears he's already firing as he steps back from Kizzee. The other then joins in after squeezing btwn cars.

Perhaps the first one shouted that there was a gun, I don't know. We are not told. We are told they saw it together and opened fire because of that and that seems impossible, given the video.

It also seems unlikely given the doorbell cam, which captured a first volley of shots going off before the second deputy joins in.

So there's that.

19 rounds were ultimately fired.

The coroner's autopsy report has not yet been completed or published.

But, Wagner says, Kizzee had several wounds to the chest, both arms, one shot to the back, and a graze wound to his head.

The gun had 15 live rounds and was reported stolen in Vegas in 2017. It is being tested for functionality.

Now we have reached the incriminatory video portion of the presser.

The first video is meant to show deputies attempting to detain Kizzee as he rides his bike down Budlong on the wrong side of the street.

The speed with which they come after him & the fact that they swerve wildly to avoid another 🚗 is notable. He knew this wasn't about the 🚲

Just as an aside, Budlong was recently upgraded to include traffic calming measures explicitly aimed at encouraging biking there.

Also, people often ride against traffic so as not to be caught slipping.

Kizzee does a u-turn in front of them, but biking isn't his forte, so he crashes on the sidewalk and makes a slow-moving break for it on foot. One deputy jogs after him, the other is seen walking.

The second one is the one we'd all seen before, of Kizzee awkwardly hustling away, trying not to drop his clothes. There is no real urgency on the part of the deputies as they walk back to their car. But they then search for him.

Now they're moving on to a clearer video of what led up to Kizzee being shot. It is striking that his hands are up. High. Like way up in the air. And then something happens that triggers a struggle.

We are not told what triggered the struggle. The deputy is immediately physical with Kizzee. Wagner only says here, the deputy approaches him on the sidewalk, "and this is when the struggle ensues. He bends over, and he is shot. And down he goes."

The next video again contradicts the statement made earlier about both deputies having seen the weapon and open fire accordingly.

Wagner narrates: "It shows Kizzee bending & reaching to pick up the pistol, & the resulting deputy-involved shooting." What it shows is Kizzee backing up & bending over, but not what is dropped, nor if he managed to pick it up. It also shows the deputy pulled his gun immediately.

Warning: grainy but graphic for what it implies. Within a second of the above, the first shot is fired. You can see the man in the street react to this first volley of shots, too. Kizzee's clothing is visible in his hands, but not a weapon. The 2nd deputy is still in the street.

I should say *within two or three seconds, sorry.

And then you see the spray of shots hitting the dirt. It was like open season. Which, if we go by their original statements about the weapon having fallen to the ground and him not having touched it, is quite a thing to behold.

As I'm watching them showing videos of Kizzee hanging out with his gun on a porch, I'm thinking about this question of why it took three weeks for them to declare he had actually picked up the pistol.

I mean it makes for great headlines at a presser on a day the most conservative member of the Oversight Commission is calling for the sheriff's resignation

They've muted the audio on Kizzee's video of himself bc of there are lots of f-bombs and the n-word in the rap song he's listening to, they said. Which has the effect of making it look more menacing and less like stunting for the 'gram...which is clearly what's happening here.

My god, they're doubling down on the claim both deputies saw him pick up the gun. This is incredible.

"Both said he put his hand on the gun, picked it up. And the second deputy didn't even recognize it as a gun until it came up AND HE SAW THE BARREL POINTING AT HIM."

Honest question. Have they watched their own videos.

Sorry it's taking so long...I was looking for this shot: an overhead view of where the gun was in relation to Kizzee and whether or not it could have ever been pointed at the deputy.

The gun is seen in this overhead view, as are the clothes he dropped. Kizzee's body is behind the sheet. He was already on the ground by the time the other deputy moved onto the sidewalk to open fire.

I still need to replay the videos a gazillion more times to figure out what I'm looking at.

But in the meanwhile, dismissive as Villanueva is about this having been an assassination, it is worth considering that the job of law enforcement is to engage people who probably don't want to be engaged. It's the nature of the job.

If the only way you can do it is by first nearly running them down and second getting physical with them when they are obviously putting their hands up and saying you got them, and third, firing enough shots to kill an elephant, then you are probs not that great at your job.

I'm just stunned at how casual he is about 19 shots being fired like this.

Villanueva: "If you saw the amount of time it took to fire 19 shots, it was probably in a span of 2 or 3 secs... so when you say 19...this is not slow motion you know Hollywood movie."

His explanation for the evolving story about Kizzee picking up the gun is that they gave a quick public safety statement, but didn't nail down all the crucial information until recently.

A reminder that as of this bonkers press conference last Thursday, they were still having trouble getting one of the deputies to sit down for an interview.

https://twitter.com/sahrasulaiman/status/1304130400738897921

There's more but it's mainly about how this was a bike stop because they were concerned about safety. Which is my cue to get back to finishing my story about how it was absolutely not that. Watch for yourself.
facebook.com/22506095085415…

If you feel so inclined, send letters to your electeds, some of whom are having thoughts about Villanueva

https://twitter.com/ReporterClaudia/status/1306730579128233986