Anaheim had been waiting to hear how the tragic October 27 police killing of Abigail “Abby” Lopez could possibly be justified. All most of us saw was the 20-year old, on the bus bench outside of Burger King, apparently throwing down her BB gun in compliance with the police’s orders, and then, five seconds later, being shot to death. Were we missing something?

Then a couple weeks ago, the APD released its “critical incident report” video, which gives some answers but leaves some questions. At the distance they were at, the police thought Abby’s non-lethal BB gun was an actual “short-barreled assault rifle.” (In fact, from the distance they were at, they thought the diminutive short-haired girl was a man, as did the witness who made the 911 call.) They say that, when she was commanded to drop the gun, she dropped it and then retrieved it, “multiple times” – which we don’t see in their video.

They say that what she DID drop five seconds before being killed, in the short Instagram video below that we’ve all seen, was NOT the gun but something else. (The female cop, one of the ones who later fired, seemed sure that Abby had TWO guns, which became a rumor.)

And they say that right after dropping that object, Abby RAISED HER GUN at the officers and was shot, by two cops, with four bullets. In this video of the last few seconds of her life, the camera pans to the cops at the moment she allegedly raised her gun, so we don’t see that happen:

 

 

 

 

 

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But before we get to the APD’s “Critical Incident Report,” let’s ask:

BB Guns: Why do People Have Them?

I have to ask, and we have to know, if only because Abby is the FOURTH person killed in the last 12 years by Anaheim Police, just for having a BB gun that the cops thought was a real gun – and no other crime! The fourth that we KNOW of!

Owning a BB gun is generally legal in California, although you need parental permission if you’re under 18. It IS illegal under Penal Code 20170 to “DISPLAY an imitation firearm” in public – and that includes BB guns, which obviously resemble real guns to your average person, even to cops from a distance, cops who you’d think could tell the difference.

The BB’s themselves are plastic and not deadly, and BB guns are generally quieter and have less power than even other air-guns that are also used for backyard target-practice or “plinking.” A few years ago a kid in our neighborhood was having a blast with one, shooting at birds – everybody got upset, his parents took it away, and we never saw it again.

Abby’s BB gun

Back in early 2012, Bernie Villegas thought it’d be a great idea to buy his son a BB gun for his birthday, and Bernie first spent a little time in his apartment parking lot “plinking” at bottles, which led to a worried neighbor’s 911 call. Bad luck, a responding officer was Nick “Buckshot” Bennallack, who shot Bernie in the back as he walked home with the present. (Bennallack went on to fatally shoot three other men – the unarmed Manuel Diaz, the armed and Fry’s-robbing Steen Parker, and the unarmed Daniel Ramirez. Bennallack is no longer on the force.)

The other three BB gun tragedies we know of were all people with mental and/or drug problems – Peter Muntean AND Eliuth Penaloza Nava in 2018, and now Abby Lopez. Not doing anything wrong except for carrying a BB gun and acting erratic. So, it may seem obvious, but if you have a mentally troubled friend or family member, you should probably try to make sure they don’t go around with a BB gun.

Now let’s see what the APD has to say about all this. [CLICK BELOW!]

A burning question: If Abby didn’t drop her BB gun five seconds before her death as most of us thought we saw, then what WAS it that she dropped? The police describe her as “discarding an unknown item” but still “believed to be carrying a short-barreled assault rifle.” You’d think after approaching the fallen woman they would have determined what that “unknown item” was. Watching the Instagram video closely it looks like something “floppy,” and later footage shows a black sort of bag – maybe that was what she tossed, it seems relevant.

To the right on the sidewalk – is that the unknown object she discarded?

But the most important question is: Did she really raise the “gun” toward the officers, right before they fired? Only that would explain why two of them felt it necessary to kill her. But the Instagram video doesn’t show that, and neither do the 3 bodycams – they are either obscured by objects or too far away. And it would be helpful to see the location and position of the gun where she would have dropped it, but we are not shown that.

At the moment of being shot –
could this be her pointing her BB gun at the police?
Hard to tell.

A court will decide, possibly a jury, whether this APD killing of Abigail “Abby” Lopez was justified, whether she was reasonably considered to be such a threat to public safety that she had to be put down right away. As will the state’s Attorney General, under AB 1506, since she was technically unarmed.

One thing we do not appreciate in this Critical Incident Report is the inclusion of the list of Abby’s previous brushes with the law, as they’re irrelevant to whether this killing was justified. Manuel Diaz’ mother Genevieve Huizar established in her successful Excessive Force appeal against Bennallack that the inclusion of such information, unknown to the firing officer, is not admissible in court. The cops who shot Abby didn’t know who she was – they thought she was some man with a “rifle.” The only reason for defenses to include this information is to make juries, and the public, think “Oh well, no great loss.”

Meanwhile Anaheim mourns the loss of Abigail Lopez, a promising, big-hearted young lady who was going through a rough spell.