Security camera nearest deadly Corona Costco shooting was not working, DA says
The surveillance camera positioned closest to the deadly encounter between an off-duty police officer and an intellectually disabled man in the Corona Costco in June was not working that night, the Riverside County District Attorney’s Office said on Friday, Sept. 27.
The only video that prosecutors say exists was filmed from far away. The grainy video shows Kenneth French, 32, being pushed away by his father before French’s mother crawls into the scene. The video, which does not include audio, then shows the three of them falling to the floor as they are shot. Kenneth French died.
The video, released publicly Wednesday, does not show the shooting by Los Angeles Police Department Officer Salvador Sanchez or the attack by French that Corona police say provoked the gunfire. Attorneys for Sanchez and the French family disagree on whether Sanchez fired lawfully.
The Riverside County Grand Jury on Tuesday, after hearing witness testimony and reviewing the video and police reports, declined to charge Sanchez with any crime.
Dale Galipo, the attorney for parents Russell and Paola French, said Thursday that he believes that additional video exists that could shed new light on the confrontation and added that it could come from the camera hanging above the deli, where the shooting occurred. The family has filed a civil claim for damages against the city of Los Angeles.
“As has been previously expressed, the video provided is the only surveillance video that exists,” DA’s spokesman John Hall wrote in an email Friday in a response to a question about the deli camera. “The specific camera you are asking about was determined to not be functioning at the time of the shooting.”
Phone messages left with the Costco corporate office in Kirkland, Washington, on Thursday and Friday were not returned.
Robert A. Gardner, an independent security and crime prevention advisor based in Santa Paula, said it is not unusual for security cameras to not be working, for various reasons. But he said he doubted that Costco would have inoperable cameras that are just for show in order to save on costs but still dissuade customers from stealing.
“That doesn’t usually happen in the larger retail operations. You find that much more in the mom-and-pops and the liquor stores. There’s a whole market out there for phony cameras,” he said.
Gardner added that there is no legal requirement for a store to have security cameras.
“Cameras are for loss prevention. They are not there for the protection of the people in the store,” he said.