L.A. County deputies who shot and killed Dijon Kizzee will not be charged

Two Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies will not face criminal charges for the fatal August 2020 shooting of Dijon Kizzee, whose death in South L.A. sparked days of protests and outrage.

In a 19-page memo released Tuesday in response to a public records request filed by The Times, prosecutors said deputies Christian Morales and Michael Garcia "reasonably believed, based on the totality of the circumstances, that force was necessary to defend against a threat of death when they initially fired their weapons."

While some witnesses and activists have long claimed Kizzee was unarmed at the time of the shooting, prosecutors accepted Morales and Garcia's assertion that Kizzee picked up a handgun that he'd dropped while running away from deputies and pointed it at them before they opened fire.

Prosecutors decided grainy video of the incident helped corroborate the deputies' explanation, according to the memo, though no footage actually shows Kizzee holding a weapon. Sheriff's deputies did not begin wearing body-worn cameras until two months after Kizzee was killed.

Kizzee, 29, was killed in the 1200 block of West 109th Place in the Westmont neighborhood of South Los Angeles. Morales and Garcia first encountered Kizzee when he was riding a bicycle on the wrong side of the road, and they tried to stop him for a traffic violation, authorities have said.

Kizzee dropped the bike and fled. Deputies caught up to him a block away and found Kizzee appearing ready to surrender with his hands wrapped in towels or garments, according to the memo. Instead, Kizzee punched Morales in the face, causing Garcia to "run in to assist," according to the memo.

In the struggle, a handgun fell to the ground.

"Kizzee bent down and picked up the pistol. Morales stepped back, drew his weapon, and fired multiple shots at Kizzee, who turned away from Morales and fell to the ground, substantially out of view of the surveillance camera,” the memo read.

As Kizzee collapsed from his injuries, both deputies thought he was reaching for the weapon a second time and fired another volley, according to the memo. Kizzee was shot 16 times.

The Sheriff's Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Morales and Garcia's statuses with the department are not known. Kizzee's family retained civil rights attorney Ben Crump in the case, but his office also did not immediately reply to an inquiry sent Tuesday morning.

A grainy but graphic video of the encounter obtained by The Times in September 2020 showed a physical altercation between Kizzee and the deputies before Kizzee tried to get away and fell to the ground.

At that point, two deputies opened fire multiple times. A wall and fencing obscured the full scene, including where Kizzee’s jacket fell.

Some witnesses contended Kizzee did not throw a punch and his hands were empty when he was killed. Latiera Irby, 29, said she saw Kizzee get into a scuffle with the deputies and that they only opened fire after Kizzee had fallen to the ground.

“He had nothing in his hands,” she said around the time of the shooting.

None of the footage shows Kizzee holding a weapon, but prosecutors said images from the scene helped validate the deputies' version of events.

"The fact that scene photos show the pistol ended up many feet east of where Kizzee bent down further corroborates the deputies’ statements that he picked up the pistol before he turned away from them and then dropped it next to his body near the driveway apron," the memo released Tuesday read.

Although it's unclear whether Kizzee was still a threat when deputies continued to fire while he was on the ground, prosecutors said, there is no evidence to disprove the fact that he was potentially reaching for a gun.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.