By Libor Jany
Los Angeles Times
LOS ANGELES — A jury this week awarded roughly $11 million to the family of a man fatally shot by the LAPD while holding a folding knife during a mental health episode in 2024, attorneys for the family said.
The verdict in the death of Wilver Blanco came after jurors deliberated for a little more than four hours over two days.
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Blanco, 42, was shot on the afternoon of May 19, 2024, after police were called to the 100 block of West Colden Avenue in the Broadway- Manchester neighborhood following a report of a man chasing an elderly man with a knife, possibly while under the influence of drugs.
Two officers, Stefan Carutasu and Dominique Billew, responded and found Blanco standing near a parked car, repeatedly slashing at an area under the bumper. With guns drawn and taking cover behind their squad car’s doors, the officers ordered Blanco to drop the weapon.
Moments later, he sprung up from a crouch and began running toward the officers, who fired a combined seven shots, sending him tumbling to the pavement about 20 feet away.
The officers later told department investigators they fired because their lives were in danger, and LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell and the Police Commission concluded that their use of lethal force was justified because Blanco was armed.
Carutasu was involved in another fatal shooting the following year, in which officers shot and killed 35-year-old Mario Sanchez after mistaking the cellphone in his hands for a firearm.
Blanco’s family’s lawsuit argued the officers could have done more to deescalate the encounter, including through the use of less-lethal weapons, such as a 40mm projectile launcher.
The officers should have recognized that he was in the midst of a crisis and that the 5-foot-3, 136-pound Blanco posed little threat to the officers, the lawsuit said. But instead of formulating a plan, the suit argued, the officers began yelling at him. Less than 20 seconds later, they opened fire.
The family’s attorney, Christian Contreras, said the case was one in which officers “played judge, jury and executioner.”
“The officers claimed that Mr. Blanco was going to kill them to attempt to justify this shooting, but the jury disbelieved the officers and awarded the family fair and reasonable compensation for their loss,” Contreras said in a statement.
As with most jury awards, the amount could be lowered on appeal and any potential settlement still would need approval from city leaders.
If it stands, the payout would be the latest in a series of large legal settlements stemming from police shootings, many of which involved people in crisis.
The largest in recent years, nearly $24 million, was awarded to the family of a Navy veteran who was shot in Canoga Park in 2017 while holding a metal bar that police thought was a machete.
On Thursday, Mayor Karen Bass announced that she was ordering an outside review of the Los Angeles Police Department’s policies and training for handling such emergencies.
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
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