By Brooklynn Wong
Anaheim PD has kept the Orange County District Attorney’s Office busy lately, as the DA has just released its third report on an APD incident in recent weeks.
This one concerned a 2017 officer-involved shooting in which the circumstances surrounding the shooting of a known gang member by a police officer were unclear.
On Nov. 17, 2017, APD received a domestic violence call from an apartment on Citron Street. There they found a woman in distress who had been punctured with a knife and spray painted on the back by her significant other, Gerardo Ramos, with whom she has a child, when she had attempted to end their relationship.
However Ramos had left the scene prior to police arrival.
One week later, they received a similar call from the same woman. They found her with injuries and torn clothing. She said Ramos had physically assaulted her and locked her in a garage. Ramos again had already fled.
The next day, Nov. 25, 2017, the woman contacted APD to tell them that she knew where Ramos was, and that he was sleeping. He was at the Citron Street apartment where the two incidents had occurred, which belonged to his mother. Ramos’ mother was aware the police were on their way.
APD Officers Matthew Bradley, Brian Moultrie and Matthew Chavarin responded with the intent to arrest Ramos. He had not only committed the two acts of domestic violence, but had a lengthy criminal history that included auto theft, assault with a deadly weapon, vandalism and arson.
The officers activated their body worn cameras as they entered the apartment complex.
They went into the apartment, where Ramos’ mother pointed them in the direction of the bedroom where Ramos was sleeping.
They entered the bedroom, which was dark, and found Ramos in bed, but awake.
They told Ramos to put his hands up, and a second or less thereafter, a shot was fired at Ramos.
According to body worn camera footage, Officer Bradley, who was the one who had fired the shot, acted surprised, startled and distressed. He immediately administered aid to Ramos and told him to “hold on,” “stay with me,” “talk to me,” and that “I know it hurts a lot; hang in there.”
Ramos was shot in the torso.
Paramedics were immediately called for. Ramos was transported to UCI Medical Center, where it was determined that the bullet had exited his body via his left shoulder. He was operated on, and released just four days later.
In the fallout, Ramos was charged on many counts, including corporal injury on a spouse/cohabitant, child abuse or endangerment, assault with a deadly weapon and false imprisonment. A preliminary examination was held in June of this year, in which witnesses including the mother of his child testified. Ramos pled guilty to seven of ten charged crimes.
As for the officers and the ensuing investigation, the confusion had originated from the question of whether Officer Bradley shot at Ramos because Ramos’ hands were concealed and Bradley believed him to be making a move towards the officers with a deadly weapon, or whether he discharged the weapon accidentally in an attempt to turn on his firearm mounted light, directly below the trigger, to illuminate the dark room.
In interviews, Bradley had affirmed the former, saying, he knew about Ramos’ criminal history and his gang affiliation, and when they entered the bedroom, Ramos made eye contact with him and was “tracking” his movements around the room, and his hands were the only part of his body that were covered.
Bradley, giving his recollection of how things had transpired, said, “It’s subtle, it’s not a lot but it’s almost like he’s kind of fiddling, reaching or something….I see his arm start to now extend towards where I believed Moultrie was…And his hand starts to extend….It’s moving under the covers. It’s moving in a direction that I feel like…or I perceive that he was gonna come up with a gun, and shoot Moultrie, and engage me, and in that moment I was—that’s what I was afraid of. I didn’t want him to get the jump on us. And in that moment I fired.”
He then says he realized there was nothing in Ramos’ hands, so he re-holstered his weapon and began administering aid to Ramos.
He affirmed that it was “absolutely not the case” that he accidentally fired his weapon.
However, Bradley was the only one who offered that up as the explanation. Officer Moultrie said that Bradley had accidentally fired while trying to activate the flashlight. He said Bradley “literally turned pale when he seen [sic] that gun went off,” and “he was in kinda like disbelief of the gun going off.”
Ramos’ mother said she freely let the officers into her apartment because she thought they were going to handcuff and arrest Ramos. She heard the shot, came into the bedroom, and said Officer Bradley looked “scared.”
The report called the possibility of Bradley intentionally shooting Ramos in reasonable apprehension of danger “highly suspect and questionable.”
The DA’s Office says “it is the OCDA’s conclusion based on the totality of all the available evidence that this is clearly an incident involving the accidental shooting by Officer Bradley.”
But there was no basis for criminal charges for Officer Bradley. The report’s conclusion says, “there is insufficient evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt criminal culpability on the part of Officer Bradley when he accidentally shot Ramos on November 25, 2017. Nor is there sufficient evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Officer Bradley falsely reported a crime, or obstructed or delayed OCDA Investigators when he gave false statements to the OCDA Investigator in this case.”
Bradley has been on administrative leave since the time of the shooting.
The full report, as well as body worn camera footage, can be seen at http://orangecountyda.org/reports/videoandaudio/default.asp.
