A former Whittier police officer who fired four shots at a fleeing suspect, hitting him twice in the back and leaving him paralyzed, had only 21 seconds to assess the situation and reasonably believed the suspect was turning toward him to shoot him when he fired, his defense attorney said in closing arguments of his trial Friday, Nov. 14.
Salvador Murillo, 44, a 15-year veteran of the Whittier Police Department at the time of the April 30, 2020 officer-involved shooting, faces two counts each of assault with a semiautomatic firearm and assault under color of authority for shooting Nicholas Carrillo, who was unarmed as he ran from police following a traffic stop in an Uptown Whittier alley.
The shooting occurred in an alley south of Walnut Avenue, between Comstock and Greenleaf avenues near Uptown Whittier in daylight. The Whittier Police Department did not have officers equipped with body-worn cameras, nor did their squad vehicles have in-car cameras, prosecutors said Friday.
Prosecutors argued Carrillo was unarmed, not posing an imminent threat and that Murillo used more force than was necessary when he fired two pairs of shots “ruining his life” and leaving him “permanently paralyzed.”
Murillo’s attorney said his client did not know whether Carrillo was armed, saw Carrillo’s right hand near his waistband and fired the first two shots after Carrillo rounded a corner, extended his left arm and turned to locate the pursuing officer.
The question for jurors is whether Murillo had the lawful right to use deadly force.
Carrillo had been driving a car that Murillo and his partner, Cynthia Lopez, had been told previously was used in a robbery at a Walmart store, attorneys representing both sides said during their closing arguments. Carrillo’s girlfriend was accused in the robbery, but he was not.
The two then-detectives were working as plain-clothes officers and spotted the car, with blacked out windows preventing officers from seeing inside, while on their way to the station, Murillo’s attorney, Vicki Podberesky, told the panel of five men and seven women. Lopez requested patrol units to conduct a traffic stop.
Podberesky said Lopez and Murrillo never intended to be part of the traffic stop, but became stuck when the first arriving officer blocked one part of the alley while the suspect car blocked the other.
The position of the officer and Lopez, who got out of the passenger seat of the unmarked police car, created a crossfire that Lopez recognized and called out, but after Carrillo backed into the undercover car, Lopez fired a shot, hitting the back windshield of Carrillo’s car and lodging in the roof, Podberesky said.
She fired two more shots as Carrillo got out and began running, which may have led Murillo to believe Carrillo fired the shot as officers are trained not to shoot in crossfire situations, Podberesky said.
“He continues to evaluate, but this is happening in seconds,” Podberesky said. “The suspect is still not showing his hands.”
Carrillo turned a corner behind a garage, extending his left arm while his right arm was near his waistband, Podberesky pointed out on video played for the jury. That’s when Murillo made the decision to shoot.
“I believed that he was trying to acquire my location to shoot me,” Murillo said in a quote from his testimony displayed by Podberesky.
He testified that he fired two more shots after going through the gate because he still couldn’t see Carrillo’s hands and Carrillo was turning toward him.
“He doesn’t pursue (Carrillo) to shoot him,” Podberesky said. “Mr. Murillo is pursuing him because he’s acting dangerously, running down an alley in a residential area during the pandemic when we were all told to shelter in place.”
But Deputy District Attorney Jason Quirino said if Murillo truly believed Carrillo had fired shots as he got out of the car, then it didn’t make sense for Murillo to continue to assess the situation instead of immediately firing back in response.
“If he really believed that, there’s not an officer in the world who wouldn’t shoot at that moment,” Quirino said. “He knows Lopez shot because she’s standing right next to him.”
Quirino called Murillo’s memory of the events “patchy,” and said he seemed to only remember portions of the incident that painted him in a favorable light and Carrillo in an unfavorable light.
Quirino pointed to a still-frame of the video a moment before Murillo fired the first two shots showing Carrillo’s hands empty at his sides as he was about to hop a gate. Quirino argued against Murillo’s testimony that Carrillo was turning toward him when he fired the last two shots.
The first shot hit Carrillo in the left middle back, Quirino said. The second hit him in the spine on the lower back.
“If he’s turning then why is the shot directly in the back?” Quirino questioned.
Both attorneys acknowledged that Carrillo’s actions were at least partially at fault for how the events unfolded, but Quirino criticized the officers for their response that day, saying it was mishandled with significant mistakes.
Quirino also argued that Murillo could have called talked with his partner, called for backup or set up a perimeter as alternatives to shooting.
“People often run from the police,” Quirino said. “They don’t often get shot.”
Both Murillo and Lopez were charged nearly three years after the shooting, but charges against Lopez were dropped in July 2024 after a judge found there was insufficient evidence against her, court records show.