Family of man shot ‘at least’ 17 times by deputies in East L.A. files lawsuit

The family of a man allegedly shot at least 17 times by deputies in East Los Angeles has filed a federal lawsuit against the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, the family’s attorney said.

Eduardo Edwin Rodriguez, 24, was shot and killed around 3 a.m. on Feb. 14 after he and two others were pulled over by deputies at Whittier Boulevard and Ferris Avenue.

Deputies had noticed a car that appeared to have been stripped and left in a supermarket parking lot, authorities said. They also spotted a van parked nearby with a woman in the driver’s seat.

The parking lot has been used to dispose of stolen and stripped cars before, authorities said said, so the deputies drove around the block to have a closer look at the car and the van.

On their second pass, the deputies observed that the van had three occupants, two males and one female. When the van pulled out of the parking lot, the deputies followed and then pulled the vehicle over because it had no light on the license plate, police said.

The driver and one passenger, following deputies’ orders, exited the van toward the deputies, authorities said, but the man in the front passenger seat, later identified as Rodriguez, resisted.

Rodriguez was “being fidgety” and making the deputies nervous by reaching for his waistband, Lt. Eddie Hernandez said in the days after the shooting.

“He kept saying he needed his cellphone, and she [one of the deputies] was doing everything she could to keep his hands from the waistband area,” Hernandez said.

The deputy repeatedly told Rodriguez to keep his hands on the dashboard, Hernandez said, and had to force him out of the vehicle because he wouldn’t get out on his own.

As the deputy was pulling Rodriguez from the van, Hernandez said, her partner, who was on the other side of the vehicle, shouted that he saw a gun.

The deputy was still trying to control Rodriguez’s hands, Hernandez said.

Rodriguez freed his hands after a minute and a half of a “pretty violent struggle,” Hernandez said. At that point, the deputy believed Rodriguez was going to reach for a gun so she fired her weapon, as did another deputy who had been standing behind her.

According to the complaint, Rodriguez was shot “at least” 17 times, mostly in the back of his torso and the back of his head. He was pronounced dead at the scene at 4 a.m., coroner’s records show.

At a news conference Wednesday, Rodriguez’s family insisted that he was not armed. But investigators found a .22-caliber revolver on the ground where Rodriguez exited the van, Hernandez said.

“I’m just here for him, for his kids. We all miss him a lot and, well, we’re asking for justice, and we don’t think it’s right what he went through. He shouldn’t have suffered the way he did,” Rodriguez’s girlfriend, Stephanie Yanez, told reporters.

Authorities believe Rodriguez had tucked the gun into a back brace he was wearing, Hernandez said, and the deputies did not realize it had fallen during the struggle.

Jorge Gonzalez, the family’s attorney, said the deputies “had no reason to shoot.”

“They’re trained to respect the sanctity of life,” he said, “yet they shot him when he was unarmed at the time of the shooting and they shot him in a manner so excessive.”

Gonzalez argued that the deputies “lost control” and panicked, causing their training to go “right out the window.”

“What are they going to do with those deputies? This is why they’re up in arms all over the country,” Gonzalez said. “This is why people are upset in Baton Rouge, La., and in Minnesota. These are outlandish uses of force … but the departments aren’t doing something about it.”

The sheriff’s department declined to comment.

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