The California Highway Patrol has agreed to a $7 million settlement in a wrongful death lawsuit over the 2020 fatal shooting of Erik Salgado in Oakland, according to family attorney and civil rights lawyer John Burris.
CHP officers shot Salgado at least 18 times on June 6, 2020, as he drove what was reported to be a stolen Dodge sedan in the area of 94th and Cherry Streets in Oakland. His pregnant girlfriend Brieanna Colombo was in the passenger seat and was wounded.
"The officers fired their guns as if Salgado was a shooting gallery target," said Burris in a statement Wednesday."The officers' conduct was inhumane and a reckless disregard for human life for which they should be criminally prosecuted."and said she agreed with its conclusion"that the evidence does not support criminal charges" against the officers, who were not using body-worn cameras during the fatal encounter.
The CHP officers who opened fire on Salgado and Colombo were identified as Sgt. Richard Henderson and Officers Donald Saputa and Eric Hulbert. Court documents allege Henderson directed both Saputa and Hulbert to shoot at Salgado's vehicle. In 2016, Henderson shot and killed another unarmed man fleeing in a truck from a sideshow in the Southern California city of Fullerton and later claimed he shot into the truck to stop it from hitting a fellow officer. The Orange County District Attorney's Office cleared Henderson and another CHP officer in that shooting as well.