No timeline on possible charges in Visalia Jeep incident at protest, DA’s office says

Nearly three weeks after video footage emerged showing a Jeep appearing to hit two protesters at a Black Lives Matter protest in Visalia, the case has been officially turned over to the Tulare County District Attorney’s Office for review.

The office had been waiting on final reports from the Visalia Police Department. Those report were submitted earlier this week and several attorneys from the DA’s office are now looking over the case, according to assistant district attorney Dave Alavezos.

Any further investigations will be conducted through the DA’s office, he said.

So far, no charges have been filed and the DA’s office has not put a timeline on when any decisions might be made. The DA has up to a year to file charges in misdemeanor cases and three years for most felony cases.

As the video of the May 30 incident was shared across social media many people called for arrests to be made.

A Change.org petition to that effect now has nearly 1 million signatures.

“We have to be very careful, especially when we are doing something of this nature,” Alavezos said. While the case may appear simple from the video footage, “there’s a whole lot of law that the public is unaware of” before a case can go before a jury. Plus, videos like the one shared on social media don’t always capture the full context of a situation and can later be revealed to be missing key information, Alavezos said.

“We want to be sure we have looked at everything.”

Reports were submitted not just on the occupants of the Jeep, Alavezos said.

In a video statement following the incident, Visalia Police Chief Jason Salazar said that water bottles were thrown at the occupants of the Jeep from the direction of protesters while in traffic and that some protesters had started to leave the sidewalks and enter the roadway while yelling at the Jeep occupants.

“There were individuals from the protest who were in the roadway directly in front of the vehicle to prevent its movement,” Salazar said. “As bottles of water were thrown, traffic began to move and the driver of the vehicle accelerated to drive off, striking two of the protesters who were standing in front of that vehicle.”

In the video, Salazar also addressed rumors that one of the people in the Jeep was the child of a Visalia police officer.

“This information is not accurate,” he said.

One of the people in the Jeep did have an extended family relationship with a Visalia police officer, but that officer was not investigating the case and that “relationship has had no bearing on the investigation of this case or our department’s response t o this incident,” Salazar said.

Eric Schweitzer, a Visalia defense attorney with the firm Schweitzer and Davidian, sees no valid reason the driver of the Jeep hasn’t been arrested already.

Normally, someone suspected of vehicular assault would be immediately taken into custody by police.

“It’s not uncommon, and it’s probably most common, for law enforcement to continue investigations after apprehending suspects,” Schweitzer said.

“Why the exception here?”

Having seen the video, Schweitzer said it is not a hard case in which to find probably cause. The first time the women were struck could have been inadvertent, but the second contact seen in the video is obvious, he said.

“A two-ton Jeep is force, likely to produce great bodily injury,” he said.

“There’s probable cause from here to Mars.”

Schweitzer was clear to note that the driver is only a suspect and presumed innocent and that there are legal defenses to an assault. In this case, the driver might have some excellent defensive arguments.

But those are immaterial when deciding whether to arrest a suspect and file charges, Schweitzer said. As are the circumstance surrounding the incident, which may not have been captured on video.

“The surrounding circumstances are for the defense attorneys to marshal,” Schweitzer said.

“Otherwise, we have discriminatory application of the law in Tulare County.”

This story was originally published June 18, 2020 at 2:35 PM.