A teenage kidnap victim was killed in September 2022 by Californian police who were supposed to rescue her, after a hectic chase with her father, according to a video recently made public.
15-year-old Savannah Graziano was shot and killed by several San Bernardino County sheriff’s officers, east of Los Angeles. Her father Anthony Graziano had kidnapped her and killed her mother a day earlier.
Filmed from a law enforcement helicopter, the images show a chase with this man, at more than 175 km/h. During this frantic chase, several shots were fired from his pickup.
Then the car ends up taking a highway ramp in the wrong direction and stops in the brush. The video then shows Savannah Graziano get out of the passenger seat and walk toward an officer who calls her, according to the audio recording from her microphone.
“Come here! Come towards me! Come, come, come, (…) walk, walk, walk,” the police officer told him.
At the same time, a radio message apparently coming from the helicopter alerted the agents on the ground of the presence of the teenager.
“The girl is outside. (…) She is outside, on the passenger side,” warns the radio.
In the video, the teenager first crouches on the ground for several seconds, then gets up and walks towards a group of police officers. We then hear a gunshot and the voice on the radio say “Oh no”.
“Stop!” shouts the agent who was calling the teenager to his colleagues. “Stop shooting him! He’s in the car!”
The girl was rescued, but died of her injuries later in hospital.
His father was killed on the spot. Several guns and body armor were found in his car, along with hundreds of rounds of ammunition, according to the San Bernardino County sheriff.
Authorities have not released the names of the officers involved. An investigation is underway.
This video calls into question the professionalism of San Bernardino Sheriff Shannon Dicus’ officers. Its publication comes a few weeks after an autistic 15-year-old in the middle of a crisis was shot dead by their services.
“I hope that this video will be seen in its entirety and will shed light on the unfortunate events that took place,” responded the sheriff, calling to “let the Department of Justice complete its independent investigation before drawing conclusions.” conclusions”.
Interventions by law enforcement that take a fatal turn are quite common in the United States. According to an independent count by the Washington Post, more than 1,100 people have been shot dead by police over the past 12 months.
These numbers are unofficial and police departments are not required to report incidents to the federal government.
The event is added to the long list of tragedies involving firearms in the United States, which pay a very heavy price for their dissemination on the territory and the ease with which Americans have access to them: the country counts more individual weapons than inhabitants.
