LAPD officer who fatally shot day laborer was accused of using improper deadly force in 2008 shootin

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Source: Los Angeles Times

The Los Angeles police officer who fatally shot a day laborer in Westlake was previously found by the department's watchdog arm to have used improper tactics in 2008 when he shot and wounded a man in the leg, authorities said Friday.

Officer Frank Hernandez shot then 18-year-old Joseph Wolf on the morning of Dec. 12, 2008, according to an LAPD statement from the time and a civil rights lawsuit filed this March by Wolf's attorneys. The suit, pending in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, accuses Hernandez of improperly using deadly force.

The Los Angeles Police Commission found the shooting to be "in policy," but said the tactics of the officer who fired the shot warranted "administrative disapproval," according to the commission's inspector general's office.

The commission does not identify officers by name in public reports, citing personnel issues. But Hernandez was named in a Los Angeles Police Department release at the time and in a later Los Angeles County district attorney's memo.

Read more: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-0911-lapd-shooting-20100911,0,3260664.story

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Officer Hernandez shot and killed day laborer Manuel Jamines, an illegal immigrant from Guatemala, on Sunday at the Westlake shopping centre. Jamines allegedly was threatening people with a knife and refused to drop his knife when ordered by police. One witness disputes the LAPD's official word that Jamines had a knife when he got shot. Two days later, a large protest gathered at a police station, and several protesters were arrested for property damage (like starting fires). Both the LAPD chief and Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa have defended Hernandez's actions.