Police Shooting Of Mentally Ill Man Goes Viral [Video]

Yoanna Prieto, a 19 year old from Salinas, California, managed to get a video of the Salinas Police fatally shooting a mentally ill suspect earlier this week, and the video has gone viral across the Internet.

During the video, Prieto can be heard screaming at the police:

“Why the f*** did you guys shoot him? F***ing idiots! You guys are f***ing idiots!”

The drama began when Salinas police officers were called to the scene by an unidentified woman who claimed there was a man attempting to break into her home and kill her dog. A bizarre recording of the 911 call claimed the man, after failing to get into her home waving gardening shears, exposed himself and walked off.

Commander Vince Maiorana of the Salinas Police Department, told the Monterey Herald:

“Officers found the man walking down the street with gardening shears in his hand. Officers end up talking to this individual, trying to find out what he’s doing and what the situation was based upon the original 911 call. This individual started to wave the gardening shears at the officers. We tried to deploy a Taser; the Taser did not work and as the officers tried to detain this individual, this individual pulled the gardening shears and actually attacked the officers with the gardening shears. In response, the officers, fearing for their personal safety, shot this individual and he is now deceased.”

Prieto put the video on her personal Facebook page, and from there, it spread to every corner of the Internet. Prieto claims that before she uploaded the file to her Facebook page, she gave a copy to the police department so they would not be blindsided by it.

The video is disturbing to say the least. It is unclear whether the officers in question were even being attacked at all. From the looks of things on the video, the man seems to want to get away from the officers. People are questioning why to officers didn’t use batons or tasers to subdue the man.

By the book, the officers were well in their rights to use lethal force if they felt that they were being attacked by a man with garden shears. As of now, there have been no charges brought against the officers, and the Salinas Police Department ruled the officers followed proper police procedure.

Do you think that the officers were within their rights to shoot the man? Watch the video below and voice your opinion in our comments section.