ATTORNEY CALLS FOR “JUSTICE” FOR GRANDMOTHER SHOT IN FOREHEAD WITH PROJECTILE DURING PROTEST AT LA MESA POLICE STATION

June 2020 Articles

Warning: contains graphic image

By Miriam Raftery, Rebecca Jefferis Williamson and Henri Migala

View ECM video of press conference: blob:https://www.facebook.com/e539b59a-58f0-45aa-b5ba-a657a7a608eb

June 2, 2020 (La Mesa) – Leslie Furcron, 59, a La Mesa resident and grandmother shot in the forehead with a projectile Saturday night during the George Floyd protest at La Mesa Police headquarters, is now in a medically induced coma and may lose an eye, according to her attorney, Dante T. Pride.

“Ms. Furcron has witnessed decades of racist brutality and harassment by law enforcement,” a letter from Pride to the city of La Mesa sent yesterday states. “She was seeking accountability and justice on behalf of those who have been the victims of needless violence, and tragically, she became another one of those victims. We must now stand up and seek accountability and justice on her behalf.”

Pride has asked the city to release the identity of the officer who fired the projectile, which he believes is a beanbag. He also asks that the officer be removed from duty and prosecuted on criminal charges.

In addition, he calls for an outside investigation into use of force on this and two other recent incidents, one involving an officer shown on video slamming a Helix Charter High School student to the ground, the other a video showing an LMPD officer pushing an argumentative suspect into a sitting position. Pride also calls for institution of a Citizen Review Board to provide oversight of the LMPD, which the City Council has previously approved in concept.

Neither the city of La Mesa nor the LMPD have issued any statement yet on the injury to Furcron, though the city council was slated to hold an emergency meeting late this afternoon with their attorney regarding a threat to public safety amid civil unrest that has rocked La Mesa and other communities across the county and the nation.

The Sheriff’s department told ECM news partner Times of San Diego that its deputies were not involved in this incident.

During a press conference today outside city hall, Pride contended that proper training of police officers would have thwarted the incident.

On his Facebook page, Furcron’s language was more strident. He states that Furcron was exercising her “constitutionally-protected right to peacefully protest and claims that in response, “La Mesa Police Department tried to kill her.”

Reportedly, the department’s policy is to fire projectiles such as rubber bullets only below the waist. Video posted on social media shows Furcron standing at the time she was struck. Dante indicates he has examined dozens of videos and found no misconduct.

There are multiple reports from media and posts on social media sites indicated that at some point during the late afternoon or early evening, a day of peaceful protesting began to take a violent turn. Some protesters threw bottles at officers, broke windows at the police station, and threw rocks at an LMPD bearcat armored vehicle, but it’s unclear how much of that activity occurred before vs. after Furcron was struck and injured.

ECM photographer Henri Migala was on scene covering the afternoon protest and much of the actions that occurred at the police station, though he did not witness the injury to Furcorn.

After covering a blockade of a nearby freeway during the protest, Migala says he saw billows of what looked like smoke or tear gas around the police station, so he headed there.

“I saw a lot of rubber bullets being fired,” says Migala, whose photos show at least two other people who were struck. One, who identified himself as a reporter, was struck in the leg.

Migala reports he was hit with pepper balls despite attire clearly identifying himself as media. He says he also saw tear gas canisters, bean bags, pepper balls and flash bang grenades fired at protesters over several hours as afternoon wore into evening.

When some protesters encroached close to the vandalized police station, police released a large number of projectiles at once in what Migala describes as. “shock and awe.” Police came down stairs and out onto the patio in front of their headquarters as “panicked people were running away,” he says. “The police made a line to form a perimeter around their building.”

Later at night, some engaged in looting and vandalism of businesses as well as burning vehicles, two banks and a historic building. But it is not yet known who committed those criminal acts. Black Lives Matter has denounced the looting and fires; some witnesses have said that vehicles arrived after the protest, carrying black-clad individuals some of whom wielded baseball bats and incendiary devices with them. These may have been outside agitators on the far left, far right, or criminal gangs that may not have been part of the original protest.

Though besieged officers may have had concerns over their safety amid an increasingly raucus protest and vandalism of their station, a video on social media aired by CBS showed Furcron sipping from a beverage can that by some accounts she then tossed. She reportedly was taking photos or video with her cell phone when she was struck between the eyes and knocked to the ground, blood streaming from the wound in her forehead in which a white projectile was embedded.

A GoFundMe account has been set up to cover Furcron’s her medical expenses. As of tonight, it has raised more than $100,000. Donations may be made at https://www.gofundme.com/f/csgskf-love-and-support-for-leslie.

Rebecca Jefferis Williamson is an award-winning freelance journalist and photographer who has covered a wide-variety of subjects ranging from civil protests, community news and features to health issues including Covid-19, PFAS toxins, and Newcastle disease. Besides being a part of the East County Magazine team, she has freelanced for the San Diego Community Newspaper Group, Local Web Media, the Chula Vista Star News, San Diego Family Magazine, Military Press, and a number of other newspapers.

Miriam Raftery, ECM Editor and host of ECM's radio show on KNSJ, has won more than 350 journalism awards for national and regional coverage. Her experience covering major protests, disasters and civil unrest includes the Alfred Olango police shooting in El Cajon anti-war marches in Washington D.C. during the Iraq War, protests over lack of federal resources after Hurricane Katrina, demonstrations by Iraqi-Americans in El Cajon calling on the U.S. to protect Iraqi Chaldean Christians from ISIS terrorists, and two of California's worst wildfires -- the 2003 Cedar Fire and 2007 firestorms in San Diego County.

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