This Mom Is the 2nd Black Person Seeking Help That One Deputy Has Killed in 3 Years
It has been over a month since Niani Finlayson was gunned down in front of her 9-year-old daughter by a Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department deputy in Lancaster, California.
As Finlayson’s devastated mother prepares to bury her youngest child, community activists have been calling for justice and transparency from the law enforcement agency that’s sworn to protect and serve them.
During a frantic 911 domestic violence call on Dec. 4, Finlayson pleaded through screams for a man to leave her ground-floor apartment after he pushed her daughter, police said. It’s not clear what their relationship was.
A week after the sheriff’s department released portions of body camera videos and audio of Finlayson’s cries to 911, protests began. The final moments of Finlayson’s life have left community activists with more questions than answers about the systemic culture of violence perpetuated by law enforcement in the county against Black people. Finlayson is the second Black person Ty Shelton, the deputy identified as the sole shooter, has killed in three years.
“We’ve heard about a lot of stories regarding Black women and the LA County sheriff’s here. It’s like some sort of initiation they do to Black women. They don’t care. It’s all on film,” Waunette Cullors, the co-founder of Cancel the Contract, a community-led advocacy organization that’s against police violence, says. The group is also providing resources for Finlayson’s family.
What happened to Niani Finlayson?
Los Angeles County deputies arrived minutes after 6 p.m. at Finlayson’s home, where an ongoing domestic violence incident could be heard through the walls. Within seconds, four shots were fired.
Finlayson, who celebrated her 27th birthday two weeks prior, was pronounced dead at a local hospital. The county’s medical examiner ruled Finlayson’s death a homicide caused by multiple gunshot wounds. She also leaves behind a 3-year-old daughter.
Body camera videos are from the vantage point of Shelton, and an unidentified female deputy. Finlayson’s family attorney, Bradley C. Gage, says the sheriff’s department released a small fraction of her 16-minute call to 911 and an edited compilation of the deputies’ body camera footage.
“It’s so much of a self-serving presentation by the department. … And they do that in law enforcement as a way of trying to cover up their wrongdoing. It’s the new code of silence. It’s a new way of deceiving us,” Gage said.
Cancel the Contract and Finlayson’s family are calling for the release of the full version of all recordings as well as Shelton’s termination and decertification to prevent him from getting rehired by another department in the state.
The footage starts with neither officer announcing that they were on the scene as Finlayson’s voice rose another octave. A statement from the sheriff’s department concurred that the deputies did not announce themselves before attempting to enter Finlayson’s home.
The female deputy tried to kick the blue door open, but failed. Finlayson, who was armed with a knife, opened the door and verbally threatened to stab the unidentified man she called 911 on for assaulting her daughter. As Shelton followed the female deputy into Finlayson’s apartment, he asked for her stun gun, which is a de-escalation tool, and she handed it to him.
“You knew what you were there for. When it’s a domestic [violence call] why didn’t you separate them? You took out a Taser, why didn’t you use it?” Cullors said to Capital B. “Why didn’t you say, ‘Hey, put the knife down. We’re here now. We’re going to change things. Let’s de-escalate’?”
As Finlayson walked toward her alleged aggressor with the knife in tow, Shelton switched from holding a stun gun to his service weapon.
“She had that knife in her hand for at least 16 minutes during that 911 call. So, if she was really going to really use a knife on that man, don’t you think she would have during those 16 minutes?” said Gage, who has litigated civil rights cases in Los Angeles County on behalf of law enforcement and victims of police brutality since 1985.
Without any words exchanged, Shelton opened fire.
As her body fell to the ground, Finlayson’s alleged aggressor shouted, “Why did you shoot?”
Finlayson’s family filed paperwork announcing their intention to sue the sheriff’s department and the county for $30 million to cover mental health support, funeral and burial costs, as well as to conduct an independent investigation.
One deputy and two on-duty deaths in three years
As multiple law enforcement agencies are investigating Finlayson’s case, the sheriff’s department said in a statement that they will “examine and evaluate every aspect of the shooting including the response, tactics, and background of the employee.”
The most glaring element in Shelton’s background is his first fatal shooting, in June 2020. Shelton was on the job for two years when he killed Michael Thomas while responding to a domestic disturbance call in Lancaster. The sheriff’s department said in a statement at the time that Shelton opened fire when Thomas allegedly grabbed a deputy’s pistol. The incident was not captured on body cameras.
The prosecutor’s Justice System Integrity Division launched an investigation and concluded in May 2022 that Shelton was wrong for deciding to shoot Thomas instead of using other tactics. But it determined that there was “insufficient evidence” to prove Shelton acted unlawfully.
Shelton avoided prosecution, and when he returned to work, he was promoted to a field training officer. He earned nearly $200,000 in 2022, according to Transparent California records.
Over the past decade, 143 people were killed by a member of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, and only five cases resulted in charges filed, according to the Mapping Police Violence database that has tracked fatal police cases since 2013.
Thomas’ family filed a federal lawsuit where Shelton is named as a defendant. It is scheduled to go to trial in August, according to online court records. Capital B has reached out to Shelton’s civil lawsuit attorneys for comment.
Richard Pippin, the president of the Association for Los Angeles Deputy Sheriffs, said in an email statement to Capital B that Shelton was in a dangerous situation that deputies in the union “frequently face.” Finlayson’s case “was obviously a tragic outcome, an outcome attributable to a violent and highly volatile situation,” he wrote.
Following Finlayson’s killing and per departmental policy, Shelton was “removed from the field pending the outcome of the department’s critical incident review,” the sheriff’s department wrote in an email statement.
“I think it’s pretty clear here that what he did was wrong. The female deputy was there before the third female deputy was in the vicinity, and only he shot,” Gage says. “In my opinion, Ty Shelton now has blood on his hands multiple times … and he ought to get prosecuted.”
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