Parents Sue Over Slaying of Son by Police

Nearly a year after San Diego police fatally shot a man swinging a cement trowel in the midst of morning rush hour traffic on Interstate 5, his parents have filed a civil rights lawsuit in federal court against the city of San Diego and the officer responsible for the shooting.

The shooting death of Jose Eleazar Lopez-Ballardo, 24, a construction worker from Mexico, outraged passing motorists, who said they believed San Diego Police Officer Thomas K. O’Connell and two highway patrolmen should have been able to subdue Lopez with less than deadly force.

The wrongful-death lawsuit was filed this week on behalf of Lopez’s parents by Enrique Loaeza, consul general for the Mexican Consulate, who is representing the dead man’s estate, according to attorney Raymond Buendia.

Loaeza’s involvement is limited to representing the parents, Candelario and Manuela Lopez, and does not indicate any legal action on behalf of the Mexican government against this country, Buendia said.

The lawsuit comes eight months after the district attorney’s office cleared O’Connell in the shooting, and six months after Lopez’s parents filed a $5-million claim against the city, which was denied.

“I have talked to eyewitnesses and they are shocked by what happened out on I-5 that day,” Buendia said. “There was no justification for that shooting.”

Like many natives of Mexico, Lopez traveled north to find work and landed a job as a construction worker. Shortly before the shooting, he sent his family $2,000 he had earned, Buendia said. He lived with family friends while in San Diego.

On the morning of the shooting, a California Highway Patrol officer spotted Lopez walking in the northbound lanes of I-5 near Ardath Road, carrying a plastic bucket of masonry tools. Patrolman Carlos Gutierrez said he offered Lopez a ride off the freeway, but the man refused.

According to a district attorney’s investigation that cleared O’Connell in the shooting, Gutierrez grabbed Lopez, threw him into a patch of freeway plants and began hitting him with a baton. Lopez, in return, cut Gutierrez’s hand with the trowel and shattered a plaster level against his body.

Lopez ran across all four northbound lanes, as cars swerved to avoid him. A second highway patrolman, William Shipley, arrived at the scene. He and Gutierrez held Lopez at bay in the southbound lanes of I-5 by holding out their batons. O’Connell arrived shortly thereafter. He said he heard Gutierrez order Lopez to drop the trowel, and drew his pistol. Lopez pounded a car with the trowel.

When Lopez came to within 5 to 10 feet of O’Connell, the officer fired three rounds from his semiautomatic weapon. Lopez kept advancing, O’Connell fired again, and Lopez fell.

Police have repeatedly described Lopez as mentally disturbed. Buendia said there is nothing in Lopez’s medical history that shows he has mental problems.

“He was not mentally ill. He had not been to see a doctor or psychiatrist,” Buendia said. “He had no alcohol, no drugs, nothing in his system.”

In concluding that O’Connell was legally justified in shooting Lopez, the district attorney’s office ruled that the trowel was potentially as deadly a weapon as a gun or knife.

“The fact that it is a trowel with a benign purpose does not alter its potentially deadly employment as a slicing or stabbing device,” Dist. Atty. Edwin Miller said at the time.

The civil rights lawsuit alleges that the city of San Diego and its police department “has an unlawful policy, custom or habit of inadequately screening, training, retaining, disciplining and supervising its police officers,” including O’Connell.

Quoted in the district attorney’s report, O’Connell said he feared for his life, which police department guidelines say justifies an officer’s use of force.

“There is no doubt in my mind whether he was going to try to hurt me,” said O’Connell, 29, an eight-year veteran. “If I wasn’t in his way, he was going to hurt someone in one of the cars.”

Buendia agreed that it would have been difficult for O’Connell to be criminally prosecuted for his actions.