From [HERE] L.A. County District Attorney George Gascón has decided against filing criminal charges against the sheriff’s deputy who fatally shot Andres Guardado in 2020, according to a declination letter obtained by LAist. Police gunned down the 18-year-old as the nationwide protests that occurred after George Floyd’s death by Minneapolis police officers raged.

The letter states that “given the available evidence, there is insufficient evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt” Deputy Miguel Vega’s actions “were not because he honestly and reasonably feared for his life at the time he fired his pistol.”

According to the civil lawsuit, on or about June 18, 2020, at approximately 5:53 p.m., decedent, Andres Guardado, was working as a security guard for an auto shop located at 420 West Redondo Beach Boulevard in an unincorporated area of Los Angeles County, known as East Gardena, California 90248 (hereinafter "subject location"). At some point, a white Lexus pulled up in front of the auto shop with two occupants inside of the vehicle. Decedent, Andres Guardado, approached the passenger-side door, bent down, and began having a friendly conversation.

Soon thereafter, Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department Deputy Miguel Vega, Deputy Chris Hernandez, and DOES 1 through 50, inclusive, arrived at the subject location. Deputy Miguel Vega and Deputy Chris Hernandez parked their vehicle next to the driver-side of the white Lexus and rapidly exited their vehicle to approach the direction of the auto shop.

“18-year-old Andres Guardado, became scared and fled south down the alleyway. Without provocation or justification, and in violation of defendants' policies and procedures, the deputies immediately drew their weapons, and proceeded to chase after decedent down the alleyway. At some point, Deputy Vega, again without provocation or justification, shot Andres Guardado in the back, firing in total at least six times. Five of those bullets struck Andres directly in the back and each of those five gunshot wounds possessed an independent lethal capacity, ultimately causing his tragic and untimely death.”

Witnesses also said Guardado had no gun and was on his knees with his hands on his head when he was shot in the back.

Andrew Heney, owner of the Freeway autoshop where Guardado worked, said the teen became frightened when deputies pulled up on him with guns drawn for no reason and so he ran.

“The police came up, and they pulled their guns on him and he ran because he was scared, and they shot and killed him. He’s got a clean background and everything. There’s no reason,” he said. [MORE] and [MORE]

According to FTP after they killed him, police then destroyed all the cameras that may have caught the interaction before stealing the DVR from the repair shop. Then, as they promised “transparency,” they blocked the results of the autopsy from the family — so the family had their own autopsy performed.

Capt. Kent Wegener, the head of the department’s Homicide Bureau, told ABC7 that investigators have taken six or seven exterior cameras from the scene, claiming two of the cameras were missing their memory cards.

A search warrant was obtained to gain access to any “web-based video or security footage from the third-party vendor who supplies the service at the scene,” Wegener said.

However, Heney disputes this claim and said police “got the warrant after they took the cameras.”

“This is the first camera they yanked off the wall,” Heney said pointing towards one of the broken devices in an interview posted on Twitter. “They broke it off and took it right off the wall,” he said as he pointed out another.

“They were just trying to be malicious and covering themselves,” he said.

“They illegally got into everything, then they had the place locked down and then they got the warrant,” he said.

The complaint stated, “Plaintiffs are informed, believe, and thereon allege that at all times relevant and mentioned herein, decedent never posed a risk of imminent injury or death to Deputy Miguel Vega, Deputy Chris Hernandez, or any other person. Plaintiffs are also informed, believe, and thereon allege that at all times relevant and mentioned herein, the use of deadly force by Deputy Miguel Vega was not necessary to prevent imminent serious injury or death. Plaintiffs are further informed, believe, and thereon allege that at all times relevant and mentioned herein, Deputy Miguel Vega, Deputy Chris Hernandez, and DOES 1 through 50, inclusive, failed to use other available resources and techniques and, moreover, an objectively reasonable officer would know and believe that it was reasonably safe and feasible to use these other available resources and techniques.”

The family ordered an independent autopsy, and in July, the autopsy found Guardado was shot five times in the back. The findings by the county coroner’s office echoed the independent autopsy’s findings. Guardado’s cause of death was a homicide.

On November 10, the county coroner’s officer called for the inquest “in the interest of public transparency,” after questions arose about excessive force. The inquest was held on November 30, and the findings were forwarded to the district attorney and sheriff’s department for review.

Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy Miguel Vega, the officer who fired the deadly shots, submitted a declaration. He indicated “that if he were to appear and be questioned at the inquest, he would assert his Fifth Amendment right not to testify.”

In December, the sheriff’s department announced that Vega was taken off the force over an investigation that arose from a separate incident in April.

However, Sheriff’s investigators said Deputies Miguel Vega and Christopher Hernandez told them that they saw Guardado with a gun as he stood outside an auto body shop near Compton. When they tried to stop him, he ran down the shop’s driveway.

The declination letter says that according to Vega, Guardado stopped, put the gun on the ground and lay face down, but as Vega went to handcuff him Guardado made a grab for the weapon. Vega opened fire. There were no witnesses to the shooting other than Vega.

There's also no video of the shooting; the incident occurred before Sheriff's deputies began wearing body cams, and there's no surveillance video of Vega opening fire. An autopsy found Guardado was shot five times in the back.

Police watchdogs had closely followed this case because it happened less than a month after the murder of George Floyd and sparked days of angry protests. They repeatedly had called on Gascón to file charges against Vega, and claimed the deputy unnecessarily killed Guardado as part of a ritual to join a deputy gang.

The FBI has also investigated the Guardado shooting but there so far have been no charges by federal prosecutors. Last fall the county paid $8 million to settle a wrongful death suit filed by Guardado's family.

Federal prosecutors have secured an indictment against Vega and Hernandez in another case involving witness tampering and the alleged false imprisonment of a skateboarder two months before the Guardado shooting.

Guardado’s family is “deeply disappointed” by Gascón’s decision, according to a statement from its attorney, Nicholas Yoka. It reiterated the family’s belief that Vega shot Guardado “for no justifiable reason,” and said the indictment for false imprisonment demonstrates that Vega and Hernandez should not have been in uniform on the day they encountered Guardado.