Sean Monterrosa, the 22-year-old San Francisco man shot and killed by a Vallejo police officer last week, was declared dead an hour later, according to a report from Bay Area television’s ABC7 that contradicts what the city’s chief of police told reporters.
Monterrosa was shot by a Vallejo officer around 12:30 a.m. Tuesday. The officer mistook a hammer near Monterrosa’s waist for a gun while responding to a report of looting at a local pharmacy, Vallejo police Chief Shawny Williams said last week.
The officer was identified by multiple law enforcement sources as Jarrett Tonn, a veteran police officer who had three prior shootings since 2015. Tonn and several “witness officers” were placed on administrative leave after the shooting, police said.
The Vallejo Police Department waited nearly two days after Monterrosa’s death to publicly confirm that an officer had killed someone. The department put out a news release at 4 a.m., which stated that there had been an “officer-involved shooting” but offered no further details.
When Williams was questioned why it took police so long to confirm Monterrosa’s death — and why the initial news release made no mention that someone had died — Williams claimed that, “when we pushed out the information (Monterrosa) wasn’t pronounced dead.” But the ABC7 report found that Monterrosa’s official time of death was 1:31 a.m., roughly one hour after he was shot.
Williams did not immediately respond to a request to clarify the discrepancy.
The roughly 38-hour delay between Monterrosa’s death and Williams’ news conference has already drawn the ire of local elected officials, who have called for a third party investigation into the shooting. Some critics noted that Williams called a news conference on Tuesday, in which he condemned widespread looting that had taken place throughout the city over the past 12 hours, but didn’t offer any details into Monterrosa’s death.
“Regardless of circumstances, it is absolutely unacceptable that the public was forced to wait for over 24 hours to learn of the conditions of those involved in the shooting,” Assemblyman Tim Grayson, whose district includes Vallejo, said in a news release last week.
This comes as the California Attorney General’s office is readying itself for a rare review of the Vallejo Police Department’s practices and procedures, including use-of-force policies. Over the past decade, Vallejo police officers have shot 32 people, 18 of them fatally; no officer has been fired for their role in a police shooting in that time.
Including Monterrosa’s death, Tonn fired his duty weapon on four separate incidents during his career, including two shootings within six weeks in 2017, and a shooting in 2015 where he fired 18 times. None of the three prior shootings resulted in a death; internal investigations cleared Tonn of wrongdoing each time.
On June 2, Tonn and other officers were responding to reports of people trying to break into the Walgreens on the 1000 block of Redwood Street. On the night of June 1 and early morning of June 2, there was widespread looting and civil unrest across the city; someone even started a fire inside City Hall.
The Vallejo police union — which has not confirmed Tonn’s name — said in a news release that Monterrosa appeared to be armed and was “crouching,” which the officer perceived as him readying himself to shoot. Williams said the officer mistook Monterrosa’s hammer for the butt of a gun.
Members of Monterrosa’s family believe he was surrendering when he was fatally shot. They have retained the services of civil rights attorney John Burris and are planning to take legal action against the city.
There were protests in Vallejo for several days after Monterrosa was killed. Protestors marched down Sonoma Boulevard, and demonstrated outside the Vallejo police station.
Monterrosa’s death marked the first fatal Vallejo police shooting since February 2019, when six Vallejo officers fired dozens of shots at Willie McCoy, a 20-year-old Suisun City resident who was asleep in his car — in a Taco Bell drive-thru — with a pistol in his lap. The shooting drew criticism and national news coverage, and is the subject of a federal lawsuit filed by Burris’ firm.
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Report: Sean Monterrosa was declared dead an hour after being shot by Vallejo office - Vallejo Times-Herald
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