Family sues Indio police for $5M in fatal shooting

For the second time in two years, the Indio Police Department faces a multimillion-dollar lawsuit claiming that an officer shot a fleeing man in the back.

The family of Ernest Foster Jr., who was killed about two years ago, filed a $5 million civil rights lawsuit against the Police Department last week. The department lost a similar lawsuit to another family last year.

Officer Jeremy Hellawell shot Foster, 37, during a foot chase near the intersection of Monroe Street and Highway 111 on July 4, 2013.

Hellawell, who was responding to a report of a man with a handgun, attempted to stop Foster outside of the Cig Zone, a cigarette store. According to the lawsuit, Foster tried to run away, so Hellawell attempted to zap him with a stun gun, but the weapon didn't work. Hellawell then chased Foster into a nearby alleyway, where the fleeing man was shot twice in the back, the lawsuit states.

Police have never said publicly what prompted the officer to open fire, or whether the shooting was justified.

On Monday, Foster family attorney Justin Palmer said Monday that the lawsuit was filed to to force the police agency to provide answers on the shooting. Although Foster was killed nearly two years ago, authorities have yet to release a police report, video footage or Foster's coroner's report, Palmer said.

"We don't know fully what happened," Palmer said. "We've been given an explanation by the cops, but that's only their word, and at this point, it is mostly hearsay."

"I think, given the lack of transparency, the family didn't have a choice but to file a lawsuit."

Hellawell has been cleared of all criminal culpability by prosecutors, said John Hall, a spokesman for the Riverside County District Attorney's Office.

The Indio Police Department said Monday it could not comment because it had not yet been served with the Foster family's lawsuit.

Foster, who was widely known by the nickname "Man," was a convicted felon who had been caught carrying a weapon twice over the prior five years.

Police and prosecutors have said that Foster was also carrying a handgun at the time of his death, but Palmer has disputed this, saying authorities have provided no evidence that Foster was actually armed. And even if Foster was carrying a gun, that wouldn't automatically justify the shooting, Palmer said.

"We can't confirm whether he did or did not. And, I think, based on their pattern of hiding information, it's reasonable to question whether he had a gun," Palmer said.

The Riverside County Sheriff's Department, which conducted a criminal investigation of the Foster shooting, refused to answer questions about the incident. A department spokesman said it would not be inappropriate to comment because of the Foster family's lawsuit, despite the fact the sheriff's department is not a defendant in the suit.

Previously, the Sheriff's Department has released information on shootings under similar circumstances, but would not in this case.

The shooting of Ernest Foster in many ways mirrors the death of Alejandro Rendon, a man who was killed by Indio police five months prior. The Rendon family successfully sued Indio police for $1.9 million in 2014.

Rendon, 23, was shot in the back by Officer Alex Franco during a chase in February 2013. Rendon had a knife in his possession when he was killed, but he did not brandish it during the shooting.

Last week, an investigation by The Desert Sun revealed for the first time that Franco had attended a funeral for a murdered police office one day before the Rendon shooting. When Franco returned to patrol the next day, he had what investigators described as a heightened sense of "officer safety," which made him more likely to use deadly force when he felt threatened.

Much like in in the Rendon lawsuit, the Foster family will attempt to argue that the victim was simply running away, and therefore police had no justification to use deadly force, Palmer said.

Reporter Brett Kelman can be reached by phone at (760) 778-4642, by email at brett.kelman@desertsun.com, or on Twitter @TDSbrettkelman.