Click photo to enlarge
Walnut Creek hair dresser Anthony Banta, 22. (Photo Courtesy of Mandy Grainger)
WALNUT
CREEK -- The family of a hairdresser killed by Walnut Creek police last
month is seeking $15 million in a wrongful-death suit filed against
four members of the police department, alleging the 22-year-old man was
shot after officers tripped and fell over one another.
Anthony
Banta Jr. was killed Dec. 27 when officers say he charged them with a
knife after a fight with his roommate in their Creekside Drive
apartment. A lawsuit filed Jan. 24 in U.S. District Court in San
Francisco maintains the altercation had ended by the time police arrived
and that Banta was not armed. The lawsuit says that one officer fired
in a panic after reacting to the other officers tripping and falling
behind him, and that other officers also opened fire.
Walnut Creek
police declined to comment on the lawsuit, referring all questions to
James Fitzgerald, an attorney representing the city. Fitzgerald also
declined to comment, saying the incident is still being investigated.
Fitzgerald
said the joint investigation, which involves the police, the Contra
Costa County District Attorney's Office and the Contra Costa Crime Lab,
could take at least three months but likely will take longer.
Police Chief Joel Bryden has previously said officers were forced to shoot when Banta came at them with a 10-inch knife.
The
family's lawsuit, which names the city and four unidentified officers,
said that Banta had just returned to the Bay Area after visiting relatives
in Yuba City over Christmas. Banta got into an argument with his
roommate, either over jealousy surrounding the roommate's girlfriend or
"tidiness, noise or the many things that roommates can argue about,"
which led the roommate's girlfriend to make a 911 call about 3:15 a.m.
reporting that Banta was trying to choke the other man, the lawsuit
said.
Dispatchers reported to police that morning that they
heard a struggle and a woman screaming on the phone before the 911 call
ended abruptly, Bryden said at a Jan. 7 news conference.
Fitzgerald declined Tuesday to release the 911 tapes until the investigation is complete.
According
to the complaint, the argument may have led to "throwing beverage cans
or bottles, pushing or wrestling," but that the entire fight had ended
before police arrived, and that the roommate had even managed to speak
on the phone with California Highway Patrol dispatchers.
The
lawsuit said Walnut Creek police responded "under cover of night and
without a warrant," rushing to the landing of the first-floor stairway,
where Banta, a hairdresser at a Walnut Creek salon, appeared at the top
"wondering who was in his apartment."
It was when officers arrived at the landing, the
complaint
alleges, that one of them backed up, forcing the other officers back,
and tripping them to the floor. In the panic that ensued, one officer
fired his gun, and the other officers "joined in, repeatedly shooting
Anthony to death."Bryden said earlier this month that
officers' knocks had gone unanswered, and the four officers walked into
the apartment to find Banta at the top of the stairs, clutching a chef's
knife with a 10-inch blade. When officers told him to drop his weapon,
Banta suddenly charged down the stairs at them and they shot him.
The 12-page complaint does not mention a knife.
"No
one was under any threat of harm," the complaint says. "Ultimately,
only Anthony was harmed. Innocent of any wrongdoing, having only stood
up for himself by denying the false allegations of the roommate, Anthony
lay dead at age 22, never knowing that it was police officers of his
hometown, whose duty it was to protect him, who had invaded his home and
shot him to death."
Banta's family sought $15 million in damages
in the complaint, along with funeral, burial and legal costs and a
declaration regarding the officers' alleged "unlawful and
unconstitutional" acts.
"No officer wants to shoot to kill,"
Bryden said earlier. "Officers don't shoot and kill anyone unless they
are absolutely forced to."
