Local // Otis R.Taylor Jr.

Vallejo cop wanted to ‘educate’ a bicyclist about road safety. Why then did he kill the man?

Why does a man who’s minding his own business, riding his bicycle, end up dead at the hands of a police officer?

Ronell Foster’s family still wants to know the answer.

Vallejo police Officer Ryan McMahon fatally shot Foster on Feb. 13, 2018, after a foot chase into a dark alleyway. The Vallejo Police Department — finally — released the body cam video of the shooting Monday, but the footage doesn’t support the police assertion that Foster grabbed McMahon’s flashlight and threatened him with it.

It shows a cowering Foster on his back on the ground with a police officer standing over him. You see Foster get up. It looks like he’s trying to run. Then, the officer shoots him.

And for what? What did Foster do that warranted this most extreme police action?

Did he hurt anyone? No.

Was he threatening anyone? No.

Did someone call police about him? No.

He was riding his bicycle. At night. Without lights.

McMahon told police investigators that he wanted to stop Foster “to educate the public on the dangers that this person was creating for himself and the traffic on Sonoma Boulevard,” according to a copy of his interview with the investigators that the city released this week.

All McMahon wanted, as he tells it, was a teaching moment with a citizen. But the citizen kept riding away, then running away and wouldn’t listen to McMahon’s commands to stop, McMahon told investigators.

Not too long before this “traffic stop,” another police officer had shared an article with McMahon about how suspects position themselves before they attack cops — they “blade their stance,” according to the interview. And he began thinking this is exactly what Foster was doing, he told investigators. He also began thinking Foster had a gun. Foster didn’t have a gun.

McMahon had a gun though. He also had a Taser, a flashlight and pepper spray.

And after he chased Foster into a dark alley, Foster took a tumble. McMahon fired his Taser but that didn’t incapacitate Foster, he told investigators. So, he hit Foster no more than five times with his flashlight.

Foster, meanwhile, was yelling something along the lines of, “What the f—? What are you doing?” McMahon told investigators.

“McMahon then indicated he did not know exactly what the suspect was saying, but he knew that he was not happy,” the investigator’s report says.

I’m going to take a wild guess: Foster was terrified out of his mind — in fear for his life. Maybe he had seen all those viral videos showing black men being brutalized and sometimes killed by police officers. But whatever he was feeling, he’s no longer around to tell us about it.

McMahon is. His account is this: Foster grabbed the flashlight and made McMahon fear for his life. He feared Foster would strike him in the head, take his gun and shoot him.

McMahon told interviewers that “he knew that simply being hit in the head with his flashlight could lead to his death,” the investigator’s report said.

So let me get this straight: It was reasonable use of force to strike Foster with the flashlight, but it would’ve been life threatening if Foster hit McMahon with it?

“Without even thinking about it, I had my firearm out,” McMahon told the investigators. “I’m not going to die back here. I’m not going to be a victim.”

And so, McMahon ended the teaching moment by drawing his gun and pulling the trigger on the would-be recipient of his goodwill.

The bullets hit Foster twice in the back, twice in the side and once in the back of the head, according to Adante Pointer, the Foster family’s attorney.

Now Playing:
Vallejo police released body camera footage Monday of a February 2018 shooting that killed Ronnell Foster, a 33-year-old city resident accused of grabbing an officer’s flashlight during a struggle.
Video: San Francisco Chronicle

If you’re wondering why Black Lives Matter exists, consider this case and then think about this: McMahon was one of the six Vallejo police officers who fatally shot Willie McCoy on Feb. 9, less than a year after he fatally shot Foster.

Of course, there will be people who will say that Foster should’ve complied with police commands to stop. I ask this of those people: If it were you — or your loved one — who ran, do you think getting killed is a punishment that fits the crime of running from police?

“Just ’cause he jumped off his bicycle and ran don’t give them no right to just gun him down like that,” Paula McGowan, Foster’s mother, told me Monday night.

I’ve been writing about the controversial arrests, fatal shootings and police intimidation of black and brown people in Vallejo for two years. The killing of Foster is especially concerning because it shows that even the most innocuous behavior by people of color draws the ire of Vallejo’s police officers.

I can’t stress this enough: Foster was riding a bike. He wasn’t breaking into homes. He didn’t assault anyone. He didn’t have a weapon. He ran from a police officer — that’s it.

Why is it that fearless police officers responding to mass shootings around the country can apprehend white men strapped with automatic weapons after they’ve shot people at schools, movie theaters, mosques, synagogues and churches, but in Vallejo a black man gets fatally shot by a police officer for riding his bike without lights at night?
