Page:Report on shooting of actress Vanessa Marquez by LA County Dist. Attorney.pdf/17

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.

In the same period, Marquez also used the Facebook platform to describe ongoing problems with her landlord. In April, she posted that she was upset with him and believed him to be a violent person. She wrote that she intended to sleep with scissors and pepper spray to protect herself. In June 2018 she posted, "YOU, I'm going to shoot first and ask who is it later...I found an "air" gun for 28 bucks from Smith and Wesson. Is that a real gun? I don't want it to be but if it can scare someone enough to crap their pants. GOOD."

In the same post she described the emotional toll of her illness and troubles during her acting career, [1] writing, "This is fighting terminal illness alone. If the measure of a life is by the family and friends IN your life and home, then my life has been of no value. So why should I have justice for being assaulted, harassed and BLACKLISTED...I want to die NOW. I don't want to wait on God anymore..."

On July 12, 2018, Marquez posted, "After I nearly got arrested in my own home trying to report my landlord, I bought a gun; a fake bb gun but it looks like a glock."

On August 29, 2018, Marquez posted that her seizures had returned. On August 30, at approximately 7:47 a.m., she wrote "[seizures] bad."

Marquez' last Facebook post occurred during the encounter with the officers. At approximately 1:46 p.m. she posted, "there shooting cremate me pour ashes over Hollywood sign." The shooting occurred at approximately 1:49 p.m.

LEGAL ANALYSIS

In civil actions alleging Fourth Amendment violations by police officers, the courts have employed an objective standard of reasonableness in evaluating a police officer's use of deadly force. "The 'reasonableness' of a particular use of force must be judged from the perspective of a reasonable officer on the scene, rather than the 20/20 vision of hindsight.... The calculus of reasonableness must embody allowance for the fact that police officers are often forced to make split-second judgments-in circumstances that are tense, uncertain, and rapidly evolving-about the amount of force that is necessary in a particular situation." Graham v. Connor (1989) 490 U.S. 386, 396-397.

In California, the evaluation of the reasonableness of a police officer's use of deadly force employs the standard of a reasonable person acting as a police officer. People v. Mehserle (2012) 206 Cal.App.4th 1125, 1146 (holding that California law "follows the objective 'reasonable person' standard-the trier of fact is required to evaluate the conduct of a reasonable person in the defendant's position [citations omitted]... the jury should consider all relevant circumstances surrounding the defendant's conduct. This enables the jury to evaluate the conduct of a reasonable person functioning as a police officer in a stressful situation-but this is not the same as following a special 'reasonable police officer' standard.")


  1. Marquez had a successful acting career, most notably a recurring role in the television show "ER." She claimed that as a result of alleging sexual harassment on the set of the show, she was blacklisted from Hollywood.

16