A day after the Derek Chauvin verdict, the Contra Costa County Sheriff’s Office released a disturbing new video in which one of his agents fatally shot an unmarried black man in the middle of a Danville intersection last month.
The previously unreleased video features intensely graphic camera footage of Danville police officer Andrew Hall and was published just hours before Contra Costa County District Attorney Diana Becton announced two felonies against Hall for a separate fatal shooting in 2018.
Four edited and packaged videos posted Wednesday – taken with Hall’s body camera, a camera on a passing vehicle, and two stationary surveillance cameras on Sycamore Valley Road and Camino Ramon – portray in stark detail the fatal March 11 shooting of Tyrell Wilson, 33, on a busy road near Interstate 680.
Their brief encounter quickly escalates from the moment Hall beckons to Wilson. The officer’s body camera shows that it takes him 31 seconds to get from shouting at Wilson to firing the deadly shot.
The Contra Costa County Sheriff’s Office, which has a contract to provide police services in Danville, said it received three 911 calls that morning about a person throwing rocks from the highway overpass at Sycamore Valley Road. Hall drove to the intersection and saw Wilson begin to cross the street. Police said it matched the description of the person throwing stones.
“Hey buddy, come here real quick,” Hall shouts to Wilson, who is looking with his back to the camera images. Wilson refuses, asks Hall to identify himself and walks away when Hall reprimands him for jaywalking.
Hall radios for backup and continues to give orders as Wilson fires him. Eighteen seconds into the encounter, Wilson turns to Hall, who continues as Wilson backs up.
Five seconds later, Hall identifies himself as a police officer in Danville. At that moment Wilson is out on the street. He is holding a shopping bag in his left hand and appears to have a small object in his right hand – it turns out to be a knife when Wilson lets go of the blade. He steps back again, holds the knife, and challenges Hall, although the video never shows him running to the officer.
“Touch me and you’ll see what’s going on,” says Wilson.
Hall yells at him to drop the knife and draws his gun.
“Kill me,” says Wilson, patting his side with his right hand and looking up. Wilson takes two small steps forward.
Hall shouts, “Drop the knife!” and fires that hit the left side of Wilson’s face.
Wilson falls and drops the bag. The two are three feet apart, and in the exchange room, they made no effort to de-escalate the situation.
He doesn’t approach Wilson, who is bleeding in the street, until a backup officer arrives with a pair of spare gloves.
“Why did you shoot him, man?” a voice calls in the background as Hall stands over Wilson, breathing heavily, then radios for medical help. A woman jumps out of a blue sedan and walks up the intersection, identifying herself as a San Francisco police officer. She offers to help.
“Just scene control,” says Hall.
When other officers arrive, a minute after the shooting, they gather around Wilson. His blood gathers in the street.
Doctors pronounced Wilson dead in a local hospital on March 17.
In a statement accompanying the newly released footage, Contra Costa County Sheriff David Livingston said the videos showed Wilson posed a threat to Officer Hall.
“Any loss of life is tragic, but the community can now see the truth,” Livingston said in the statement.
The sheriff accused Wilson of throwing “objects, possibly stones” at passing motorists, and claimed that Wilson had “numerous stones” in his jacket pocket.
“He threatened Officer Hall,” Livingston said. And indeed he began to advance toward Officer Hall in the middle of a major intersection. Officers are forced to make split-second decisions to protect themselves and the public, and that’s what happened here. “
John Burris, a civil attorney who represented Wilson’s family, previously characterized the shooting as first-degree murder, saying it wouldn’t have happened if Hall had previously been charged in the 2018 murder of Laudemer Arboleda, who slowly drove away from the police when officer 10 drives into his car.
After watching the body-camera video on Wednesday, Burris told The Chronicle that the footage showed that Hall “created this confrontation and then used his deadly weapon to get out unnecessarily.”
Becton addressed reporters at her Martinez office and did not specifically comment on Wilson’s video. She said the matter is under investigation.
Referring to the voluntary manslaughter and firearms charge she filed in the Arboleda shooting, Becton said her office “only files charges that are appropriate and that we believe can be proven by the facts. And that is certainly the case in this case. “
Becton said she expected Hall to turn herself in once a judge signed an arrest warrant, which happened later that day. The warrant set Hall’s bail at $ 220,000. Hall could face up to 22 years in prison if convicted of the charges brought by Becton.
Rachel Swan is a staff writer for the San Francisco Chronicle. Email: [email protected]; Twitter: @rachelswan