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Investigation Finds Five To Six Bullets Hit Pasco Shooting Victim

Franklin County Proecutor Shawn Sant and Kennewick Police Sgt. Ken Lattin deliver a media briefing on Tuesday, February 19.
Anna King
/
Northwest News Network
Franklin County Proecutor Shawn Sant and Kennewick Police Sgt. Ken Lattin deliver a media briefing on Tuesday, February 19.

Kennewick police investigating the police shooting this month of Antonio Zambrano-Montes told reporters Wednesday bullets entered him from the front, and a rock was found near his body.

Officers fired 17 rounds. Of those, one autopsy shows Zambrano-Montes took five shots, the other said six.

Kennewick police spokesman Ken Lattin told reporters he didn’t want to get too graphic. But it’s sometimes difficult to sort out multiple entry and exit wounds.

“And I can’t tell you of those five or six, which officers they came from either,” he said. “That will come from the final pathology report as well.”

Witnesses say Zambrano-Montes was throwing rocks in a crowded intersection and then ran from police before he was shot. At the press conference, Lattin said a rock was found near his body.

More information may be slow to come – the police investigation wrap up and the Franklin County coroner’s inquest are expected to at-least take months.

People from the Tri-Cities’ large Latino population have demonstrated against Pasco police and questioned whether officers used excessive force to stop him. They gathered outside Wednesday’s media briefing in Kennewick to give reporters their opinions.

They were disappointed that none of this information was given in Spanish and they were disappointed that the prosecutor seemed to be in lock step with the police investigators, having given these media briefings jointly three times now. They also questioned his ability to be independent and are still calling for a federal investigation of this case.

National TV news trucks and reporters have remained in the Tri-Cities area to cover the case.

Washington state’s American Civil Liberties Union, or the ACLU, has called for the federal government to conduct an investigation beyond Kennewick police’s study of the incident.

And now a famous civil rights attorney, Benjamin Crump, is representing Zambrano-Montes’ family. Crump has recently represented the families of two famous cases: Trayvon Martin’s family in Florida and Michael Brown’s family in Missouri.

Copyright 2015 Northwest News Network

Anna King calls Richland, Washington home and loves unearthing great stories about people in the Northwest. She reports for the Northwest News Network from a studio at Washington State University, Tri-Cities. She covers the Mid-Columbia region, from nuclear reactors to Mexican rodeos.