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McDade family has differences with autopsy report

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According to the autopsy report on 19-year-old Kendrec Lavelle McDade, Pasadena police officers Jeff Newlen and Matthew Griffin fired eight shots, four at point-blank range.

When paramedics arrived at 11:09 p.m.on March 24, they found the youth “lying prone on the asphalt in the middle of the street with his hands cuffed behind his back,” said the report.

The report continued, saying: “They noted (8) visible gunshot wounds to his body. They noted the decedent to be combative and restrained him. He was awake and alert and had vital signs.”
By the time he arrived at ER “he was awake and speaking,” the paramedics indicate in the report, but “began to lose pulse.” They do not indicate when he arrived.

At a news conference last week, Caree Harper, the McDade family attorney, said the bullets that hit the young man’s arms and hip seem to contradict police reports that all the shots struck McDade in the front rather than from behind.

“A diagram in the report appears to indicate one bullet entered McDade through the back, but the narrative states that bullet’s trajectory was ‘front to back and downward,’” said a report in the Los Angeles Times.

“‘No matter how you want to twist it, there were one, two, three and a possible fourth shot’ to the back,” The Times reported Harper as saying.

“This, to us, indicates he was either falling on the ground when he was shot,” the article said.

The autopsy includes the police report which indicates that McDade ran toward the police vehicle with his hand on his waistband, and “approached within a foot of the officer’s door” when he (Griffin) fired from the driver side window.

McDade’s parents, Anya Slaughter and Kenneth McDade, allege in their federal lawsuit that their son was left on the street for a prolonged period of time without the benefit of first aid.

The suit, filed on April 3, alleges wrongful death, violation of civil rights; unlawful customs, practices and policies, and wrongful death due to negligence.

It names the police officers involved: Matthew Griffin, Jeffrey Newlen and Detective Keith Gomez. According to the suit, “Gomez has been directly responsible for multiple controversial killings of young Black men in Pasadena yet Gomez was the defendant chief’s choice to investigate the controversial officer involved shooting.”

McDade was killed on March 24 after police received a 911 call from Oscar Carrillo that he had been robbed at gunpoint by two men. However, Carrillo later admitted that he had claimed the men were armed because he felt police would respond faster.

The 17-year-old boy, who was accused of participating in a burglary and theft with McDade, later admitted to one felony count of grand theft, two felony counts of commercial burglary and one misdemeanor count of failing to register as a gang member, according to the district attorney’s office.

He was sentenced to six months in camp community placement.

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