LAPD releases footage from deadly police shooting of unarmed 18-year-old

Recently released footage shows the chain of events before an undercover officer shot and killed an unarmed 18-year-old last month.

It unveils new details nearly a week after the family of Ricardo Ramirez Jr. filed a claim against the Los Angeles Police Department.

"He was just 18 years old," father Ricardo Ramirez Sr. said last week. "His journey was just beginning, and that was taken away from us ... People are portraying him as a bad kid. He was a good kid."

The deadly shooting happened on July 13 while Ramirez, a Bay Area native, was on vacation in Southern California. The 18-year-old traveled to LA with his friends to celebrate their high school graduation, according to the family's attorney. 

The group were driving their silver Cadillac around the Figueroa Corridor at the same time plain clothes Vice officers were conducting a prostitution enforcement operation in the area, according to the LAPD. 

Before the deadly shooting, officers saw Ramirez and his friends get into a possible dispute with another driver. At first, the undercover officers thought the driver of Ramirez's car crashed into the other sedan or had some sort of road rage, according to radio transmissions released by LAPD.

"It was kind of strange," one of the officers said over the radio at the time. "I don't know if they were together, but they pulled in front of that car, that Toyota Camry, and then they jumped out, and they were masked up." 

Security camera released by LAPD shows at least three people exiting the silver Cadillac and walking up to the other car. After a short time, the men walk away from the car as it drives away. 

The officers started to follow the Cadillac and believed Ramirez and his friends were wearing ski masks. 

"I've talked to everybody in that car; there wasn't a ski mask on anybody," attorney Christopher Dolan said last week. "There wasn't a ski mask at any point in those cars."

In the video released by police, it is unclear if Ramirez was wearing a mask when he died. 

After the officers relayed information to other units in the area, a Vice sergeant driving by himself in an unmarked car spotted the Cadillac and tailed the group as it went east on the 400 block of 66th Street, according to LAPD.

The Cadillac then stopped across both lanes of traffic on 66th Street near Flower Street in front of the sergeant and another unmarked police car trailing behind, as seen in another security camera.

Ramirez and one of his friends exited the car and approached the sergeant's vehicle. 

Dolan said the unmarked car had tinted windows and looked like the sedan the group confronted earlier. The security camera shows Ramirez running to the driver's side of the sergeant's car. As he gets right next to the dark window, he suddenly falls to the ground before stumbling toward the unmarked police car trailing behind. 

He then collapses to the ground and lies in front of one of the officers. A bullet pierced through Ramirez's chest and killed him. 

"It breaks my heart to see my boy fall to the ground and try to crawl away from the shooter and collapse in the street," Ramirez's mother, Renee Villalobos, said in a statement.

According to Dolan, the sergeant shot from inside the car, behind the tinted windows, while Ramirez asked, "Why are you following us?" In the video, the sergeant's door opens after Ramirez collapses in front of the trailing police car.

"Ricky was unarmed. The officer was safely in his vehicle, and he shot from the vehicle into a boy with no weapon in his hands," Dolan said. "If you or I shot from inside of a car into the chest of somebody, we'd be behind bars."

Witnesses did not hear the sergeant announce that he was an officer, according to Dolan.

After the shooting, Ramirez's friend ran back to the car before the group sped away. LAPD started to chase the friends before handing off the pursuit to the California Highway Patrol. 

CHP chased them into San Bernardino County before finally getting the three men into custody. 

Officers arrested the driver, 26-year-old Israel Dezama. The Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office charged him with felony evading. 

The two other occupants were questioned and released. 

"They were afraid that they'd all get shot," Dolan said. 

Investigators did not find a firearm or any other kind of weapon on Ramirez or at the scene.

The California Department of Justice joined the LAPD's Force Investigation Division to look into the shooting. Attorney General Rob Bonta said his office will conduct an independent review under AB 1506, which requires his office to investigate any police shooting resulting in the death of an unarmed civilian.   

"It is a despicable classic case of shoot first, and ask questions later," Dolan said in a statement. "We will vigorously prosecute this case to bring Ricky and his family justice."