Gascón declines to prosecute deputies in shootings of teens

A protester stands close to sheriff's deputies near the South L.A. Sheriff's Station protesting fatal shootings.

April 15, 2023 Updated 11:20 AM PT

Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. George Gascón said Friday he would not prosecute sheriff’s deputies who shot teenagers in two separate killings that drew widespread protests in South L.A. in recent years.

The deputies who gunned down 16-year-old Anthony Weber and 18-year-old Andres Guardado will not face criminal charges in either slaying, according to documents the district attorney’s office made public Friday. In both cases, deputies claimed they saw the teens reaching for weapons, but in one case no gun was recovered and in the other the teen never pointed it at authorities.

Gascón swept into office in 2020 on a promise of police accountability and has filed charges or won indictments against police officers in at least seven on-duty deaths since he was elected, something that happened just twice in the prior two decades. But Friday’s news still drew swift condemnation from activists who often protest against police brutality.

“The murders of 16-year-old A.J. Weber and 18-year-old Andres Guardado by sheriffs who have track records of abuse would seem clear-cut cases for prosecution,” said Melina Abdullah, co-founder of Black Lives Matter Los Angeles. “We hope that political pressure from those who shield killer cops isn’t factoring into the D.A.’s decision making.”

Guardado’s death was among the most controversial killings by L.A. County law enforcement in recent memory, coming less than a month after the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis ignited mass protests.

In June 2020, deputies Miguel Vega and Chris Hernandez saw Guardado standing outside of a garage where he worked, holding a firearm, according to the district attorney’s office memo. When the deputies ordered him to talk to them, prosecutors alleged, Guardado jogged away.

Vega cornered Guardado in an alley and ordered him to lower the weapon, according to the memo. The teen did as he was told and laid down on the ground but kept the gun within reach, authorities said.

“Vega was within two feet of Guardado, bending his knee to place his shin on Guardado’s back. Vega seated his duty weapon in its holster which, Vega said, made a distinctive sound. Vega said that immediately after his gun made the sound of clicking into the holster, Guardado reached for his firearm with his right hand,” the memo read. “Fearing that Guardado would acquire the firearm and kill Vega, Vega drew his duty weapon and fired multiple rounds at Guardado in rapid succession.”

Guardado was shot five times in the back. The shooting was not captured by any surveillance footage, and sheriff’s deputies were not outfitted with body cameras at the time of the killing. The garage’s surveillance system was not functioning on the night of Guardado’s death because Sheriff’s Department investigators had taken the system’s digital video recorder and memory cards while investigating an unrelated shooting earlier in the month.

“They needed to replace their surveillance system after the investigation of the prior shooting but had not yet done so,” the memo read.

Due to the lack of independent recordings or witnesses, prosecutors said they had to rely on Vega’s version of events when making their filing decision.

Vega’s credibility, however, is highly questionable. On Thursday, an unsealed federal indictment revealed he and Hernandez were charged with conspiracy, witness tampering, falsification of records and depriving a 24-year-old skateboarder named Jesus Alegria of his civil rights in an incident that took place two months before Guardado’s killing.

“My heart goes out to the Guardado family. Nothing that my office can do will mitigate the unimaginable pain that those that knew and loved Andres must be feeling. This decision doesn’t validate the actions of these officers,” Gascón said in a statement. “They have a troubling background of misconduct and that was thoroughly considered. Sadly, at the end of the day we do not believe that there is enough evidence to prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt.”

Attorneys for Hernandez did not offer comment, but Brian Gurwitz — who is representing Vega in federal court — said that the former deputy was “grateful that the Los Angeles District Attorney’s office looked objectively at the facts and respected the presumption of innocence, despite intense political pressure to do otherwise.”

Meanwhile, Nicholas Yoka — an attorney representing the Guardado family — said Friday he was “disappointed” in Gascón’s decision and criticized the Sheriff’s Department for failing to remove Vega from patrol after the Alegria incident.

“Sheriff’s Department officials knew these deputies were unfit to be on the streets, or serve our communities, yet they were not timely disciplined or removed from their positions,” he said in a statement. “If the Sheriff’s Department had done so, Andres would still be alive today.”

Weber’s killing on Super Bowl Sunday in 2018 sparked weeks of protests and outrage in South Los Angeles, especially as questions arose about what happened and whether the teen really posed a threat.

The Sheriff’s Department claimed the boy was carrying a gun — but investigators never recovered a firearm. Even so, prosecutors said in their memo, he probably did have a weapon, so the deputy who killed him “acted in lawful self-defense.”

Since investigators were unable to find a weapon at the scene in 2018, officials have theorized it somehow went missing in the angry crowd that formed after the shooting. Weber’s family, meanwhile, has maintained the boy was unarmed.

Deputies Gregory Van Hoesen and Manuel Escobedo responded to a 911 call about a teenager in a black shirt and blue jeans who’d allegedly pointed a gun at a motorist in the 1200 block of 107th Street. When the deputies arrived on scene and didn’t see anyone in the area matching that description, they parked and started walking around. They soon found Weber.

When Van Hoesen ordered Weber and the woman next to him to show their hands, they both obeyed. According to the memo, Van Hoesen said he spotted a gun tucked in Weber’s waistband.

“If you move, I’ll shoot you,” he warned.

The boy turned and fled, with his hands still in the air. Van Hoesen gave chase, with Escobedo following 15 feet behind. As Weber ran, he allegedly looked back and moved his right hand toward his waistband. “Terrified” that the teen was reaching for a gun, Van Hoesen fired 13 rounds. Weber fell to the ground and died at the scene.

This week, his mother, Demetra Johnson, said her family was saddened by the decision not to pursue charges.

“The family is extremely disappointed in the D.A.’s decision not to proceed with the case,” she said. “But we understand why: There was never an investigation done on the officer. It was all centered around my son and not the officer shooting an unarmed child.”

Gregory Yates, an attorney representing Weber’s family in a wrongful death lawsuit which the county settled for $3.75 million, called the district attorney’s memo “one-sided,” pointing out that it made no mention of the hefty settlement that his co-counsel previously described as “an implicit acknowledgment that this was a bad shooting.”

While Vega and Hernandez were relieved of duty in December 2020, officials confirmed Friday that Van Hoesen and Escobedo are still deputies. Their attorneys could not immediately be reached or declined to comment.

In a statement late Friday, the Sheriff’s Department called the incidents “tragic for everyone involved” and said that, since prosecutors have finished their investigations, the department will now move ahead with its own administrative review for possible discipline.

Gascón’s decision not to file charges in either case comes during a flurry of other prosecutions of police officers by his office. Earlier this week, he brought assault charges against two Whittier detectives who shot a fleeing suspect in the back, severing his spine. On Thursday, an indictment was handed down against two Torrance police officers in a case Gascón reopened after his predecessor declined to charge the officers.

But questions have remained about Gascón’s ability to be transparent in cases where he won’t file charges against police, a move that risks angering his political base as challengers to his 2024 reelection bid begin to emerge.

Gascón normally calls news conferences to announce charges against police. But he has frequently only released information in response to public records requests about decisions not to prosecute or after business hours or late on Fridays, when the decisions are less likely to garner news coverage.

Records reviewed by The Times showed a prosecutor initially recommended against charging Vega in Guardado’s death eight months ago, and it remains unclear why Gascón’s office took so long to make the finding public. The union representing rank-and-file prosecutors claimed last week that such delays were intentional stalling for political purposes.

It took prosecutors five years to reach a decision in Weber’s case. Tiffiny Blacknell, director of communications for the district attorney’s office, said prosecutors were waiting for additional information from a non-law enforcement source. She did not offer specifics.

Blacknell has refused to say why eight months elapsed between the initial recommendation not to charge Vega and the public announcement Friday.

Times staff writer Alene Tchekmedyian contributed to this report.