Washington's new Office of Independent Investigations says it will review the 2020 shooting death of Andrea Churna by a Redmond police officer to determine whether a new criminal investigation into her death is warranted.
The Churna shooting is the first such review formally announced by the OII, a first-of-its-kind agency formed by the Legislature to address conflicts of interest that arise when police investigate themselves. The agency, which is still in its formative stages, eventually will investigate every law enforcement-caused death in the state.
Churna, a 39-year-old divorced mother of a young boy, then 7, was unarmed and attempting to surrender to police when Officer Daniel Mendoza, a rookie, shot her six times with a semiautomatic rifle from a distance of 14 feet. Churna, who was in crisis, had fired a gun into the door of her apartment then called police because she thought someone was trying to break in.
Mendoza, just before he fired, had reported Churna was "proned out," having walked out of her apartment and laid facedown on the carpet. Police found a jammed handgun inside the apartment.
Mendoza, a 26-year-old Navy veteran, was just 18 months out of the academy and had been fired for poor performance by another agency, the Whatcom County Sheriff's Office. He declined to cooperate with a King County Sheriff's Office investigation into the shooting, refusing to be interviewed or to provide a statement about why he shot Churna. Several of his colleagues followed suit.
The city of Redmond ultimately paid $7.5 million last year to settle a wrongful-death claim from Churna's family. The city said Mendoza no longer works for the Police Department.
In a 39-page decline memorandum issued in July, the King County Prosecuting Attorney's Office's Public Integrity Team explained its decision not to charge Mendoza, saying he may have reasonably believed Churna was armed and posed a threat — and that nobody could prove otherwise.
But a consultant hired by the Prosecuting Attorney's Office said he couldn't fully parse whether the shooting was "objectively reasonable" and in line with the law and standard police practice without a statement from Mendoza.
Prosecutors in the office said the decision not to charge was a "close call."
Churna's family had hired two consultants who questioned the legality and necessity of the shooting.
Churna's father, Michael Thomas, a retired Michigan State Police commander who in a distinguished 32-year career investigated or oversaw investigations into dozens of police shootings and homicides, is incredulous that criminal charges weren't filed.
After King County's decision not to charge Mendoza, the family, through Port Orchard attorney Kim Zak, asked OII to take a second look at the case — a process anticipated by the Legislature when it formed the organization.
Zak said Thursday that OII had contacted her and will meet with Churna's family next week to explain the process.
Redmond police Chief Darrell Lowe said he's been notified of the review and that his department "will continue to fully and transparently cooperate."
OII spokesperson Hector Castro said families or attorneys have referred 10 cases, including Churna's, to the nascent agency for review. Two were determined not to meet OII's criteria for review, which must include "an assertion of material new evidence." Two cases remain under assessment, and five others will receive a formal review once the parties are formally notified.
Churna's is the first review to be publicly acknowledged and announced.
A new investigation will be opened only if OII Director Roger Rogoff, a former state and federal prosecutor and King County Superior Court judge, determines there's new evidence that wasn't included in the initial investigation.
Rogoff explained in a recent interview that the reviews have turned out to be a complex process that involves using "clean teams" to go through the submitted evidence and remove anything that might taint a criminal investigation before a senior investigator even reviews the case.
For example, a law enforcement agency's chief can compel an officer to talk as part of their employment, but nothing the officer is compelled to say can be used in a criminal investigation. Likewise, some materials gathered during civil litigation can also taint criminal cases.
"We had to add a whole layer to the process," Rogoff said. "It's been pretty exciting to watch these cases take shape."
