Information About Fatal Police Shooting of Army Vet Won’t Be Available for Up to a Year, Calif. Police Department Says

Police in Lodi, California shot and killed
Parminder Singh Shergill, a Gulf War veteran whose family says he
suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, while he was walking
with his mother and brother down the street on which he lived.
Police say Shergill was carrying a knife and charged at cops before
they shot, an account disputed by witnesses.
The San Francisco Bee reports:

A “protocol team,” including representatives of the San
Joaquin County District Attorney’s Office, the state Department of
Justice and the Lodi Police Department are investigating the matter
to determine if the shooting was justified, said police spokesman
Lt. Sierra Brucia. Results may not be available for “up to a year,”
Brucia said this week. He said no further information will be
available until the probe is complete.

Mark Merin, a Sacramento civil rights lawyer who is representing
Shergill’s family, filed a tort claim Thursday against the city of
Lodi, a precursor to a lawsuit that will allege the killing
violated Shergill’s constitutional right “to be free from excessive
force” and his “substantive due-process rights to life and
liberty.”

The family’s lawsuit will also claim the police department did
not properly “train” the officers who killed Shergill. Their
attorney claims the department has shown a lack of transparency,
and not disclosed information they should have. The attorney hopes
the lawsuit will make it possible to obtain that information. The
Sacramento Bee wondered about First Amendment implications
of the police department’s intransigence and found out from the
vice president of the Newseum Institute’s First Amendment Center
that there’s “nothing new about agencies not wanting to disclose
information,” especially, naturally, in high profile cases.