The family of Vietnamese American Tommy Le has filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against King County, claiming that “racially selective police practices” played a role in Le’s death and that the Sheriff’s Office had lied in official documents surrounding the circumstances of the incident, reports The Seattle Times.
Aspiring firefighter Tommy Le, then 20 years old, was fatally shot by a King County sheriff’s deputy in June 2017. The lawsuit claims that the Sheriff’s Office lied in official documents saying that Le had a knife and lunged at deputies.
During a news conference Tuesday morning, attorney Jeff Campiche claimed the Sheriff’s Office “absolutely knew” Le did not have a knife within seconds after the shooting, yet they still told the public and family members otherwise. Campiche also accused deputies of intentionally concealing from their police reports that two of the three bullets that struck Le hit him in the back.
“It’s hard to be shot in the back if you’re lunging at the police officer that shot you,” Campiche said. The lawyer claimed that the Sheriff’s Office “looked very hard for a knife” but couldn’t find one. He also mentioned that it’s still not clear as to whether the pen found near Le’s body after the shooting was actually his.
