Newly released video from the Los Angeles Police Department on Monday shows how a confrontation last month between a plainclothes vice officer and an unarmed 18-year-old ended in a fatal shooting.
The family of Ricardo “Ricky” Ramirez Jr. recently announced they were asking the state prosecutor to file criminal charges. They plan to sue the city for wrongful death.
Around 10:25 p.m. on July 13, Ramirez was in a silver Cadillac with three other occupants, all wearing ski masks. Sgt. Michael Pounds began to follow them. Authorities believed they were “in a possible dispute with the driver of another vehicle,” according to a release from the department.
The video shows the Cadillac blocking a Toyota Camry at 66th and Figueroa streets. All four of the Cadillac’s occupants get out, surrounding the Camry. Other cars behind the Camry begin to back up before it speeds away.
“Follow that car because they were all masked up. Follow that car. Follow that car,” one officer says over radio traffic. There is a call for a marked police officer to pull the Cadillac over.
Instead, Pounds — who was originally conducting a prostitution enforcement detail along Figueroa Street in South L.A. — followed the Cadillac 10 blocks without lights or sirens until it stopped, blocking both lanes of traffic on the 400 block of 66th Street near the intersection with Flower Street.
Video shows Ramirez get out of the Cadillac and run toward the driver’s-side door of Pounds’ unmarked vehicle. Immediately, Pounds fires through the window, shooting Ramirez in the chest. Ramirez falls to the ground, crawls away and collapses in the street.
Officers arrive and handcuff Ramirez before calling for an ambulance and starting CPR.
Police said in a July 18 statement that two passengers exited the Cadillac and approached Pounds’ vehicle from either side, but only Ramirez is visible in the video.
“It is a parent’s worst nightmare to hear their child has been killed, now seeing the video the horror worsens: Ricky was shot in cold blood with both of his hands outstretched with clearly no gun,” Ramirez’s father, Ricardo Ramirez Sr., said in a statement.
“I saw my boy brought into this world and, horribly, I saw him taken out of this world by a trigger-happy cop,” Ramirez’s mother, Renee Villalobos, said in the same statement.
The family’s attorney, Christopher Dolan, said there was no reason for Pounds to shoot, and the officer never announced himself as law enforcement. It was a “case of shoot and ask questions later,” Dolan said.
“We will vigorously prosecute this case to bring Ricky and his family justice,” the attorney said.
The incident is still under investigation, according to the LAPD.