Cops fired 55 shots at sleeping man in Taco Bell drive-thru, suit says. City owes $5M
Nearly five years ago, police officers fired 55 shots at 20-year-old Willie McCoy, killing him as he slept in his car at a Taco Bell drive-thru in California, according to a federal civil rights lawsuit.
Six Vallejo Police Department officers opened fire on McCoy after they were called to a report of an unconscious man slumped over his steering wheel at the restaurant in the city on Feb. 9, 2019, the lawsuit says.
They began shooting as McCoy started to stir, scratched his shoulder and slumped forward again, according to a third amended complaint filed in the case.
The officers said they saw a gun in McCoy’s lap but had no reason to believe he committed a crime, the complaint says.
Now, Vallejo will pay McCoy’s family $5 million in damages to settle the lawsuit filed against the city and its police officers, Melissa Catherine Nold, one of the attorneys representing the case, told McClatchy News in a statement on Jan. 10.
“We want to be clear that money does not equal justice for a young man that was murdered,” Nold said.
On Jan. 9, the Vallejo City Council approved the $5 million settlement agreement “inclusive of all attorney’s fees and costs,” city spokesperson Christina L. Lee told McClatchy News in a statement on Jan. 10.
The settlement “avoids the expense of what would likely have been several additional years of litigation” and “does not imply an admission of liability or wrongdoing by the City of Vallejo or any City employee,” Lee said.
“Regardless of the circumstances, we do want to acknowledge that all loss of life is tragic and continue to offer our sympathy and condolences to the family and friends of Mr. McCoy,” Lee added.
Once the settlement agreement is drafted and signed, it will be made public, according to Lee.
McClatchy News contacted the Vallejo Police Department for comment on Jan. 10 and didn’t receive an immediate response.
The shooting and the aftermath
McCoy grew up in Sacramento and Vallejo, according to the news outlet KQED. He was a local rapper who made music about his experiences as a Black man in the U.S. and hoped to create music about police injustice, the outlet reported.
When officers approached McCoy asleep in the driver’s seat of his car in the drive-thru of Taco Bell in February 2019, he was “obviously unaware of his surroundings,” the lawsuit says.
In police body camera footage published by KTVU, officers are heard ordering McCoy to show his hands before he appears to move. Then, while aiming at the driver’s window, the officers start shooting until one calls for a “ceasefire,” the video shows.
According to the lawsuit, Officer Anthony Romero-Cano ordered the others to shoot McCoy “if he moved and to not give (him) a chance,” the complaint says.
McCoy’s body was left with “dozens of bullet wounds” as a result, according to the complaint.
“The gory scene prevented the McCoy family from being able to have an open casket at his funeral,” the complaint says.
After the shooting, an independent court-certified expert contracted by the city’s office reviewed the incident and determined the officers’ use of deadly force was reasonable, according to a news release issued by the city of Vallejo in June 2019.
The city contends McCoy reached toward a gun in his lap when officers ordered him to show his hands, leading to gunfire.
No charges were brought against the officers accused of shooting McCoy, KTVU reported. However, one of them, Ryan McMahon, was fired in connection with the incident.
McMahon was fired on Sept. 30, 2020, for violating “department policies by engaging in unsafe conduct and neglect for basic firearm safety during the incident,” the police department announced in an Oct. 1, 2020, news release.
According to the lawsuit, McMahon arrived while officers had already opened fire on McCoy and joined in, “randomly” shooting at McCoy’s car while reaching his gun around another officer’s back.
He’s accused of opening fire without knowing what was happening.
A badge bending, ‘vigilante police gang’
After the shooting of McCoy made national news, the Vallejo Police Department’s practice of badge bending — involving officers bending the tips of the badges following a shooting — was exposed, The Vallejo Sun reported.
“VPD officers that shot and killed citizens had one point of their police badge bent to commemorate the killing and were introduced into the ‘Badge of Honor’ gang,” the lawsuit filed over McCoy’s death says.
Former police department Capt. John Whitney detailed a “vigilante police gang” he said formed within the department in a recent whistleblower lawsuit, according to the complaint.
In his lawsuit, Whitney accused McMahon of having two bent tips on his badge when he was put on leave in connection with the shooting of McCoy, The Vallejo Sun reported.
In September, the city approved a nearly $1 million settlement to resolve Whitney’s lawsuit, ABC7 reported. Whitney told the outlet he was fired from his position as captain because he reported the badge bending and made other accusations of police corruption.
Although the city has agreed to pay McCoy’s family $5 million, Nold told McClatchy News that their pursuit of justice isn’t over.
Nold said they “will continue to press forward in our pursuit of federal civil rights charges” against the police officers and continue to push for “a full criminal investigation into the Vallejo PD badge bending gang.”
Vallejo is about 55 miles southwest of Sacramento.
This story was originally published January 10, 2024 at 3:48 PM with the headline "Cops fired 55 shots at sleeping man in Taco Bell drive-thru, suit says. City owes $5M."
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