On Aug. 15, 2020, Pasadena resident Esprit Jones started her day honoring the life of rapper Nipsey Hussle, born 35 years ago that day and gunned down at age 33 on the streets of South Los Angeles in 2019. By night’s end, she’d hear the gunshots that would take the life another Black man, Anthony McClain, also 33, in her own neighborhood.
This one at the hands of the Pasadena police. Two and one-half months after the Minneapolis police shooting death of George Floyd and a summer of protests, the news spread fast, became part of the national defund-the-police movement and influenced a slate of local changes that continue to take shape a year later.
“Had I gone to the living room, I would have seen Anthony running down the street,” Jones said, “but I didn’t. I went to the bathroom, so I only heard gunshots.”
Jones, the woman who lit a candle in front of a picture of Hussle the morning of Aug. 15, 2020, the ear witness to the McClain shooting, who would rush outside within minutes of McClain hitting the ground is now a member of the 11-seat Community Police Oversight Commission, part of the very change with which Pasadena is grappling.
The big question on everyone’s minds: What changes will come?
A year ago
According to the police at the time, McClain was a passenger in a car whose driver was stopped for not having a front license plate. The driver, who reportedly admitted to driving without a license, cooperated, but the passenger darted from the vehicle. Police, who say he had a gun, shot twice, hitting the right side of McClain’s lower back, according to an autopsy report from the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner released last September
Beyond the details of the shooting itself, a narrated, 8-minute, 8-second video posted on the Pasadena Police Department’s amplified the controversy. Initially, the video was removed at the request of City Council but is once again available following a public records request from the Pasadena Star-News and outcry from the community who believe the record should reflect what members see as propaganda, so viewers can form their own opinions.
McClain ran from the car, “removed a handgun from his waistband and an Officer Involved Shooting occurred,” according to a release at the time. The video narration reiterates the allegations.
Attorneys for the McClain family dispute there was a gun. The family is suing for violating McClain’s civil rights.
“Since the incident is the subject of pending civil litigation, we are limited in what we can publicly discuss. However, we can share that the incident is receiving or will receive reviews by three separate bodies,” Pasadena city spokeswoman Lisa Derderian said via a statement this week, adding, “Our thoughts and prayers are with the family and friends of Mr. McClain in what we all agree was a tragic incident.”
Those three separate investigations include a Los Angeles County District Attorney criminal inquiry and a Police Department administrative review to determine whether the officers followed department policy in the officer-involved shooting.
“And finally, the city has retained OIR Group to conduct an independent review of the shooting,” according to Derderian. “This review will commence once the criminal investigation and administrative review have been completed.”
Family lawyers contend McClain didn’t have a gun that day. What officers saw, they say, was a Michael Kors belt buckle. No matter how it went down, some residents believe possessing a firearm doesn’t give Pasadena police the right to gun down a resident, and Councilman Tyron Hampton agrees.
It’s unclear when the investigations will wrap up, a sticking point for Hampton, who has repeatedly taken issue with their snail’s pace. Because he’s been told public officials can’t have a heart-to-heart about the McClain death until after the probes are complete, the councilman earlier this month renewed his call for a discussion on city policy.
“These investigations should take no longer than three months,” Hampton said. “Because this is stall tactic, and no one ever gets a chance to heal if we can’t even finish a basic investigation of a 15-minute video.”
He objects not only to the Police Department’s narration but to the editing of the video, which includes still photos showing a handgun police say they found near the scene above a head shot of McClain
“It’s beyond inappropriate,” Hampton said, “and if I was a jury and I looked at it, I would think ‘OK, maybe he’s a criminal.”
He’s also calling for the firing of Edwin Dumaguindin, the officer who allegedly shot McClain. The councilman said the officer is on leave.
Hampton’s pick on the oversight commission, Jones, who lives in Northwest Pasadena, believes the truth is there for those who want to find it though.
“If you watch any footage, and there’s lots of it, then you know the truth,” Jones said. “People can choose to just listen to what’s been put forward, strategically from our city’s leadership and from our police department’s leadership, or you can judge for yourself.”
Meanwhile, Jones and her peers on the city’s civilian police commission are two weeks out from completing orientation.
An oversight commission forms
Bandied about for years and spurred to creation after intense community and national outcry in the McClain shooting, the 11-seat Community Police Oversight Commission is giving residents hope it will be the first step to adding a layer of accountability and restoring faith in the police.
But city leaders remain wary the commission will live up to community expectations, considering the commission’s powers are limited: It cannot have a role in any personnel matters, and any recommendations or reports it may write cannot be used to justify or influence any personnel decisions, whether firing, hiring, disciplining or otherwise.
Pasadena police Chief John Perez, who has attracted his own calls for firing and is set to retire — but not because of the McClain situation, he maintains — has said the department is dedicated to building relations on such issues as body camera policies, use of force, training and more.
Jones herself is unsure if the commission will live up to the promises, but she does believe it has been equipped with the tools as a result of the training, which she first resisted. She acknowledges her first inclination was wrong.
“If we don’t know what they’re supposed to do and how they’re supposed to do it, then how do you prove that they did something that wasn’t right?” Jones asked, describing the training as very enlightening.
“And I definitely feel now that some of the things that happened in (La Pintoresca) Park after Anthony’s homicide were absolutely unnecessary,” Jones said, referencing park-goers inability to leave, “held hostage in a way” as she put it, forced to watch McClain die a slow death.
“And that inflicted another level of trauma, not just the people in the park but those of us who live here.”
Two days after the shooting, police Chief Perez said officers took necessary steps in the park that day: They likely felt threatened by an aggressive crowd and they needed everyone to stay in place.
Though he’s not a member of the commission, Pastor Kerwin Manning, who heads Pasadena Church, agreed and took particular issue with the city’s decision to forcibly remove a memorial from a public parkway only a few months after the passing of McClain.
As president of the Clergy Community Coalition, Manning is familiar with the ins and outs of the ongoing search for justice. He’s had monthly meetings with Pasadena police in an attempt to hold leaders accountable. Just Wednesday, Aug. 11, officers were lauding how they had solved most of the cases from the shootings this summer.
“And I just brought to their attention that it seems like they can move with expediency when it comes to other types of cases,” Manning said. But officer shootings rarely receive the same treatment, “which is problematic because it creates a distrust of the police and fear that there will be no justice.”
Jones will be the first to admit she’s unsure if the relationship between the Pasadena community and local police can ever be rekindled in light of past police shootings and beatings in the city.
Still, residents have found ways to prosper by turning the pain into productivity — and taking healing into their own hands.
‘The silver lining to his own gray cloud’
Every grandma has a favorite, and McClain was the select choice of his “Granny” Irene Bailey, who died six months after her grandson.
It’s not an official medical prognosis but locals lament she died of a broken heart.
The Northwest Pasadena neighborhood had each other to grieve alongside Rev. Brita Pinkston, Manning and a much tighter knit community than many ever considered possible prior to McClain’s death.
“We had a conversation last week, and I said: Unfortunately, if there is any silver lining to his own gray cloud, it’s that it changed the dynamic of our community,” Jones said.
The other important part of this “interestingly beautiful tragedy,” Jones said, is that this happened in the middle of a pandemic, a few months after Floyd’s death at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer, so the nation couldn’t avoid watching because there was no way to disconnect.
So while it’s hard to find a reason to celebrate while one is mourning death, Northwest Pasadena residents have, “and that made me feel optimistic in that moment,” Jones said. “I truly feel like Anthony pushed me toward my purpose. And the fact that he’s bringing people together who were not necessarily together before is part of that silver lining around Anthony’s gray cloud.”
This Sunday, Aug. 15 exemplifies that as organizations are set to gather across the city at various events throughout the day to mourn McClain.
“This past year reminded me that our commitment has to be to our community,” Manning said. “I don’t expect the city to solve this. I only expect the city to get behind the efforts of the community because it has to be grassroots.”
Manning said he was standing right next to the casket when McClain’s children walked past him, looked inside and saw their dad dead and started crying.
“It broke my heart, every time it breaks my heart,” Manning said, adding he hates holding funerals for young men like McClain, but he’ll continue because it’s almost as though he has a mandate from heaven.
“There’s a piece of me that knows that there’s going to be another casket, another shooting unless we do something about it,” Manning said. “The voices of many community members, whether they’re gang impacted or just coming from the hood or wherever, are not valued and that’s why you can shoot a young man running out of his shoes in a few moments.”