One was unarmed, shot dead by an off-duty police officer who claimed to have mistaken his welding gun for a shotgun. Another was killed by a moonlighting cop after a bar fight. A third was fatally shot by a park warden at a patch where he was growing marijuana.
At least five people – four Latino men and one white woman – among the 470 killed so far this year by police and other law enforcement officers have never been named publicly before a Guardian investigation this week.
Their identities, and details of their deaths, can be viewed for the first time on The Counted, an ongoing project to record all police-involved fatalities in the US during 2015. The Guardian is seeking more information on who they were and how they died.
Four of the five were killed in Texas – three of these in the city of Houston – and the other in California. Campaigners said the lack of public information on their cases highlighted the need for the US government to collect comprehensive data on killings by police, which it does not currently do.
“This is why we are calling for mandatory reporting of all fatal encounters,” said Kanya Bennett, a legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union, which is petitioning the government for a compulsory count. “For a start, we need to know how many people are being killed and who they are.”
Celin Nunez, 24, was killed by Houston police officer David Sudderth at a gas station in Houston while sitting in a pickup truck on 13 April. His name was not released by the Houston police department nor reported by local news outlets.
After spokespeople for several different agencies in Texas directed inquiries to one another or declined to comment, Nunez’s name was eventually released to the Guardian by the Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences, which carried out his autopsy.
Nunez was killed by Sudderth, an 11-year veteran of the Houston police force, after reportedly acting erratically and talking to himself at an Exxon gas station in north Houston. His shooting is being investigated by Sudderth’s own department and the Harris County sheriff’s office.
Officer Sudderth, who was “in full uniform and working an approved extra job”, according to authorities, was driving nearby and saw a crowd of bystanders armed with a hammer fighting Nunez, who was inside a customer’s pickup truck and allegedly trying to steal it.
The officer told his police chiefs that, as he approached the pickup truck, he saw Nunez “quickly moving around” inside the vehicle and ignoring “verbal commands”, the nature of which were not specified by authorities. Customers reported that Nunez had assaulted the owner of the pickup truck.
“The officer looked inside the pickup and saw the suspect aiming what appeared to be a shotgun in his direction,” according to a report by Sergeant Jason Robles. “Fearing for his life, officer Sudderth discharged his duty weapon while trying to protect himself and the bystanders from being shot.”
Police said the item in Nunez’s hands in fact turned out to be a welding gun used for metalwork.
Another off-duty Houston police officer who was working at a second job shot dead Phillip Garcia, 26, in January.
The officer was working as a security guard at a local bar. Following an altercation, Garcia was asked to leave, and was reported to have a handgun, according to the police account.
Confronted by the off-duty officer, Garcia allegedly refused to drop the weapon, advanced on the officer and pointed the weapon. He was then shot dead. Houston police failed to name him during a subsequent media release. The Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences also confirmed Garcia’s name.
In Sacramento, California, Luis Martin Chavez-Diaz was killed at the end of April by an officer from the state department of fish and wildlife at an alleged marijuana-growing operation on a public wildlife reserve.
Chavez-Diaz, 27, was shot dead during an early-morning raid on the pot-growing site at Stone Lakes National Wildlife Refuge in Elk Grove. A spokesman for the department said the team of officers who confronted Chavez-Diaz “found themselves in a mortal threat” and he was shot several times.
Without identifying him, officials told local reporters that he refused to drop a handgun and pointed it at an officer. Little other information about what happened has been released.
In Austin, Texas, Cassandra Bolin was killed last month by a Swat team after a standoff at her boyfriend’s apartment building that lasted several hours. The Austin police department released the identity of Bolin, 31, to the Guardian this week.
Authorities said Bolin’s boyfriend called police to report she was suicidal. Bolin emerged from the apartment and was shot with “less-lethal” rounds when she swore and made gestures at police.
After returning inside she re-emerged with a handgun, ignoring orders to drop it and pointing it at herself, the police said, and she was fatally shot when she turned it on officers.
Alejandro Salazar was also killed in Houston and then not named publicly. Salazar was being pursued by officials working for the Gulf Coast violent offenders task force on charges of robbery and assault when he was shot dead in February, according to the Harris County sheriff’s office.
The sheriff’s office, which is investigating the shooting, said Salazar emerged from a vehicle with a gun in a shopping centre parking lot after hiding in the back with a child while the officials spoke with a woman travelling with him.
Salazar was shot by a US marshals deputy and an officer from the Texas department of criminal justice, according to authorities. His name was released by a spokesman for the US marshals service, who said he could provide no other information about him.
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