OAKLAND — There will be no criminal charges filed against a BART officer who fatally shot a man outside the West Oakland BART station in January, the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office announced Tuesday morning.
The 48-page report, made public Tuesday, says BART Officer Joseph Mateu will not face charges in the death of Sahleem Tindle, according to a letter District Attorney Nancy O’Malley sent BART Chief of Police Carlos Rojas.
Tindle, 28, was killed at 4:41 p.m. Jan. 3 in the 1400 block of Seventh Street across from the West Oakland BART station. His family has been vocal in calling for charges to be pressed against Mateu, holding protests and rallies every couple of months since January, to call for justice for Tindle. In the first rallies, people held signs that read “Officer Joseph Mateu is a murderer.” Mateu reportedly returned to duty two weeks after the shooting.
In a press conference Tuesday afternoon at the law offices of John Burris, who represents Tindle’s mother Yolanda Banks and other family in a civil lawsuit, Banks said Mateu murdered her son.
“I’m devastated,” Banks said. “Especially when there is no justice given.”
She questioned O’Malley’s judgement in her refusal to prosecute Mateu.
“What about the future generation. What is going to happen to them, when qualified immunity has been given to officers who get away with murder?” Banks said.
The officer’s body-worn camera footage, which was made public by BART after it was first leaked to the media, does not clearly show Tindle holding a gun, as BART police insisted at the time.
In the DA’s report, it confirms that Mateu “could not see Mr. Tindle holding a gun at the time he shot Mr. Tindle.” But, that Mateu explained he shot Tindle because “he feared that Mr. Tindle had the gun in his right hand” and could have shot somebody else, or the officer.
“Once Officer Mateu realized that a shooting had already taken place, it was not unreasonable for him to believe that further shooting could be imminent,” the report says.
Burris said he thought at least manslaughter charges would have been appropriate in this case; manslaughter is a lesser charge to the more serious charge of murder.
“For him to shoot Sahleem to me, is a pure miscarriage of justice and just wrongful and criminal,” Burris said.
The incident began when Tindle and another man got into an argument over a bag of sneakers, and eventually a scuffle, the report says. Tindle was on his way to BART with his children and his girlfriend. The man, called “Witness #1” in the DA report, had a duffle bag filled with various tennis shoes, including Air Jordans. He stopped to smoke a cigarette, and forgot the bag on the sidewalk.
When he came back to it, Tindle had allegedly taken the bag, and the man confronted him about it. Although Tindle gave the bag back, other witnesses reported that Tindle pointed a pistol at the other man. Later when the two began physically fighting, two shots were fired from Tindle’s gun in the scuffle: one that went through the window of a nearby barber shop, and the other into the man’s leg.
Mateu ran to the scene after the shots were fired. Mateu’s body camera footage shows him running to the scene where he sees the two men on the ground in the scuffle. He can be heard shouting, “Let me see your hands” directed at both men.
Tindle has his back to Mateu and was on his knees when he was approached by the officer. Then three shots can be heard, and Tindle is seen rolling over on his back, his empty hands in the air, as he looks over at the officer, according to the footage.
Burris said the video clearly showed Tindle trying to comply with officers orders, and that the officer would not be able to tell which of the two men had the gun.
The investigation included 3D renderings to re-create the video body camera footage, some of which was done frame-by-frame to look at the possible location of the gun, and positioning of Tindle’s body.
The 3D-forensic team that re-created the footage, including an overhead view of where Tindle and the other man were positioned, concluded that the gun was still in Tindle’s right hand, at the time of the shooting.
The gun itself was found away from where Tindle was when he was shot, consistent with “Tindle having the gun in his right hand at the time of the shooting, and dropping the gun after he began falling forward.” The analysis also suggests that Mateu could have seen the gun fall from Tindle’s right hand, the report says.
Other evidence that Tindle dropped the gun, according to the report, is the location of a live round of ammunition found on the sidewalk in the area where Tindle fell after the shooting. The live round of ammunition was also captured in the body camera footage, and Tindle can be seen falling on top of it. The report says that this is consistent with Tindle having the gun in his right hand.
Tindle’s family has filed a civil federal lawsuit against BART police and Mateu, which Burris said will move forward, despite a lack of criminal charges.
Burris also represented the family of Oscar Grant, who was shot by BART Officer Johannes Mehserle in 2009. Burris said it was the only case he could think of in the past 30 years that O’Malley charged a police officer with wrongdoing. Mehserle was convicted of involuntary manslaughter in 2010.