Two sheriff’s deputies arrested and charged over shooting of unarmed man in parked car
‘My opinion, that horn, whether it scares my deputy or whether my deputy reacts to the shot of the horn, ends up firing his weapon’
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Two sheriff’s deputies in Louisiana have been arrested on manslaughter warrants and fired over the “unjustified” shooting of an unarmed man in his parked car last week.
Daniel Vallee, 34, was shot dead after a 12-minute stand-off with Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Officers outside a known “crack house” at around 2.20am last Wednesday.
Mr Vallee allegedly refused to get out of his vehicle, locked his doors, and switched the car engine on as five officers surrounded him with guns drawn.
Announcing the two officers’ arrests, Sheriff Joseph P Lopinto III said Mr Vallee had “escalated the situation” by starting the engines while the officers were in the path of the vehicle.
Sheriff Lopinto said at one point the driver raised his hands, and then dropped on the horn.
“My opinion, that horn, whether it scares my deputy or whether my deputy reacts to the shot of the horn, ends up firing his weapon.”
He identified officers Isaac Hughes, 29, and Johnathan Luis, 35, as firing multiple shots at Mr Vallee.
Both have been charged with one count of manslaughter.
Sheriff Lopinto said while the use of force was “not justified” in this situation, the killing was “certainly not intentional”.
Bodycam footage of the incident has not yet been released, but Sheriff Lopinto said it backed up the two deputies’ account.
In interviews after Mr Vallee’s death last week, family members said he had been struggling with drug addiction.
“He was a good person,” his brother, Christopher Vallee told Fox 8 Live.
“We all have flaws but he was the best.”
He is survived by a 12-year-old daughter, Brienne.
His family have hired civil rights lawyer Glenn McGovern, who questioned the use of lethal force in an interview with 4WWL last week.
Jefferson Parish began wearing bodywork cameras after a national outcry over an assault on a woman by a deputy in October that was caught on camera.