On Monday video footage of a gang member being shot inside of a courtroom was released by a federal judge. He was shot by a deputy U.S. marshal after attacking a witness with a pen during a racketeering trial in 2014. This happened in Utah.
Per Daily Wire:
Tongan Crips gang member Siale Angilau is seen in the footage grabbing a pen and sprinting toward the witness, another gang member. Angilau then rushes the witness and falls over the stand, where he is met with gunfire by an unnamed female marshal identified as "Jane Doe."
"Drop the pen. Drop the pen out of your hand," yells another officer in the courtroom.
The family of Angilau subsequently filed suit for what they claimed was excessive force used during the shooting, reports Deseret News. U.S. District Judge John Dowdell found the shooting to be justified and dismissed the lawsuit.
"The video completely contradicts plaintiffs’ argument that Angilau stopped posing a danger within less than one second of launching himself over the witness stand while making a stabbing motion with a pen in hand," wrote Judge Dowdell.
"Angilau was in custody, but he essentially had escaped custodial control for those seconds during which he was executing his plan to assault the witness," he continued. "His attack was stopped by the shots that Jane Doe rapidly fired, in less than one and one-half seconds."
The shooting was found to be justified after an FBI investigation.
"Those last three shots were all after he's been shot once down on the ground in the back, and that's the problem I have with this case. There was no necessity to use force," countered Robert Sykes, the Angilau family attorney.
The video was released on Monday to adhere to a Freedom of Information Act request filed by numerous media organizations.
Watch the video:
Now that was some brutal footage. Bad decision making closed out a life that was riddled by bad decisions.
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