Mesa settles lawsuit in police shooting of an unarmed man
MESA, AZ — The city of Mesa has paid out $250,000 to settle a civil rights lawsuit involving the police shooting of an unarmed man.
Angel Benitez, 21, was killed on September 25, 2020.
officers found Benitez in a Panda Express parking lot asleep in a car reported stolen. Officers at the time mentioned they did not see a weapon in the car. Police said Benitez woke up and drove off, and they said he later refused to pull over for a traffic stop.
Mesa police later found him parked in a Tempe apartment complex near Evergreen Road and University Drive.
Some witnesses claimed Benitez had his hands up and was complying with officers. Officers said he reached toward his waistband, which they perceived as a threat.
Multiple officers opened fire.
Benitez had no weapons. He died.
Benitez’s mom filed a federal civil rights lawsuit The $250,000 settlement contract was signed in January. ABC15 obtained a copy of the agreement in March.
“No amount of money will bring back the life of Angel Benitez," said the family's lawyer Benjamin Taylor. "However, we are glad this settlement brings a sense of justice to his family who have suffered tremendously since Angel’s tragic death.”
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Protesters march through downtown Mesa to denounce death of Angel Benitez
Followed closely by the hum of a drone and four police officers on bicycles, around two dozen protestors gathered in downtown Mesa Saturday night to demand justice for Angel Benitez. . .On Oct.1, the Tempe Police Department, which is leading the investigation, released footage from the body worn cameras of three of the officers involved the morning of Sept. 25. Based on the video, more than a dozen shots were fired and it is not clear how much time passed before Benitez received medical attention.
You’ll have to scroll for a very long time to get through this list of police shooting victims
Fatal Encounters https://fatalencounters.org/
The project, similar to others maintained by the Guardian and Washington Post, is necessary due to a massive gap in the information we have about police shootings in America. The FBI and Bureau of Justice Statistics are each supposed to track police killings. But a 2015 study by RTI International found that each agency misses nearly half of police killings in the US, and together they still miss more than one quarter.
Fatal Encounters seeks to remedy our gap in knowledge as police shootings — and the vast racial disparities behind them — get more attention in the news. For this story, we’ve pulled some of that data to break down the demographics of this population and some of their personal information.
A step toward creating an impartial, comprehensive and searchable national database of people killed during interactions with police
Fatal Encounters intends to help create a database of all deaths through police interaction in the United States since Jan. 1, 2000. We are not a finished product. We’re just the first step toward creating an impartial, comprehensive and searchable national database of people killed during interactions with police. We expect other media organizations, law enforcement, universities, artists and activist groups will advance our work, and that’s why we let anyone use the data for any reason for free.
This site will remain as impartial and data-driven as possible, directed by the theory that Americans should be able to answer some simple questions about the use of deadly force by police: How many people are killed in interactions with law enforcement in the United States of America? Are they increasing? What do those people look like? Can policies and training be modified to have fewer officer-involved killings and improve outcomes and safety for both officers and citizens?
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