Lawsuit alleges Danville officer shot and killed man without provocation

The family of Laudemer Arboleda has filed a federal lawsuit against the Danville police department and the officer who shot and killed Arboleda last year.

OAKLAND — A Bay Area woman is suing the officer who shot and killed her son last year during a police chase in Danville.

The lawsuit, filed by the mother of Laudemer Arboleda, 33, of Newark, alleges that Danville Officer Andrew Hall “inexplicably” shot into Arboleda’s car as it drove past Hall. Police have said that Hall shot Arboleda around 11 a.m. Nov. 3, after Arboleda accelerated toward the officer.

Hall is a Contra Costa County sheriff’s deputy, and was assigned to the town of Danville at the time of the shooting. The encounter started when police received a suspicious person tip of a man who got out of a car, walked toward some homes with bags in his hands, then returned to his car and circled the neighborhood, police said at the time.

The suit alleges, though, that the caller reported a man simply walking to houses with packages.

When police attempted to pull Arboleda over, authorities say he drove away and refused to yield, twice stopping as if he would pull over but then continuing to drive away.

The suit alleges Arboleda was “slowly” driving past Hall, who then “opened fire on Mr. Arboleda, by shooting into the moving car, in the middle of a heavily populated intersection, on a Saturday afternoon.”

The suit was filed by the law offices of John Burris, a prominent civil rights attorney who has represented clients in numerous high-profile officer-involved shootings and police brutality claims, including Tupac Shakur and the family of Oscar Grant III. Burris held a press conference last year in which he said police had moved their cars in front of Arboleda and “could have easily avoided any type of incident with the car.”

Asked for a comment on the suit, a sheriff’s spokesman referred this newspaper to a previous statement issued by Contra Costa County Sheriff David Livingston last year, which said that Burris was playing his “well-worn race card.” The suit does not accuse Hall or other sheriff employees of racism, but Burris said at the press conference last year officers had rushed to judgment because Arboleda was Filipino in a white neighborhood.

“This is not about race. This is about a dangerous and reckless person trying to run down and murder a police officer,” Livingston’s said in his written statement last year.

Neither a spokesman for the town of Danville nor the police chief responded to requests for comment.