[dropcap size=big]L[/dropcap]os Angeles sheriff’s deputies shot at Ryan Twyman 34 times including with an assault rifle on June 6 after the 24-year-old father of three was approached in his car in the parking lot of an apartment building, new video shows.
As deputies with weapons drawn tried to open his car, Twyman's vehicle was thrown in reverse, in an apparent desperate attempt to flee. Deputies began firing. One is briefly dragged with the car.
The graphic footage released just after midnight today (June 20) by the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department shows two deputies approach Twyman’s parked car at the South Bay Villa apartments in Willowbrook. Twyman was inside with another person, Daimeon Laffell.
There is no audio as footage shows the officers try to open the vehicle’s rear passenger doors.
The white Kia Forte turns on, and the car starts moving in reverse and looping. That's when the shots begin. The car backs into a stop while one deputy runs to his patrol vehicle to grab an assault rifle. In the video, Twyman’s car is no longer moving. The deputies keep firing.
The department disclosed that on the day he was shot Twyman was under investigation for felony weapons charges, and that as deputies approached his car intending to arrest him, Twyman’s residence had already been searched with a warrant.
Weapons were recovered, LASD said.
“Investigators had been attempting to locate Twyman for several weeks,” says Cmdr. April Tardy in the video. "In this case, the vehicle was used as a weapon against the deputies."
The statement from the LASD official is the first signal that a self-defense argument may be used if the deputies claim they felt the car put them in physical danger.
The footage was released two weeks after the June 6 shooting. Miraculously, a passenger sitting with Twyman was not hurt. Twyman was hit in the upper torso in the barrage of 34 rounds. He died at the scene.
“We do not draw conclusions […] until all the facts are known and the entire investigation is complete,” Tardy says.
On Thursday, the family of Ryan Twyman held a press conference at The Cochran Firm to call for justice for the shooting death. Twyman's killing happened within a 24-hour span in which L.A. sheriff's deputies or LAPD officers shot five people, killing four.
"I keep telling [his son] his father's at work," said Charles Twyman, Ryan's father. "He keeps asking me when is his father coming home. I'm running out of answers."
The man identified as the other person in the vehicle, Daimeon Laffell, attended the press conference but did not speak to reporters.
[Updated, 1:05 pm]
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