#2023-04-16

The family of a Tulare man killed by police released video this week they said shows he was not a threat to officers, who shot him in the back as he fled. Joel Villegas was killed by Tulare police about 3:15 p.m. April 16 after a 911 caller reported seeing someone in the area of Bardsley Ave and Vetter Street with a knife, Tulare police said in a news release. Villegas, 34, was remembered by family as a doting father and a person others wanted to be around because he made them smile. “What they did was wrong,” older brother Armando Villegas said. “It was unfair to his wife and kids and family. He mattered.” His family released video from a Tulare officer’s body-worn camera that shows the officer yelling commands as Villegas runs away from him. At one point he trips, before getting up again and continuing to flee. The video shows Villegas never advanced on police before officers fired several rounds. Officers in the video can be heard saying Villegas was not breathing before an officer begins CPR. The shooting was “so egregious,” according to Dale Galipo, the attorney representing one of Villegas’s sons and his father.