A former Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department deputy has been charged with manslaughter in connection with the 2019 fatal shooting of an unarmed Black man in the Willowbrook area.
Andrew Lyons, 37, was charged with one count of voluntary manslaughter and two felony counts of assault with a semiautomatic firearm, according to the L.A. County District Attorney’s Office.
The shooting occurred on June 6, 2019, when Lyons and another deputy responded to an apartment complex in Willowbrook. Both deputies got out of their vehicle and approached a parked vehicle where 24-year-old Ryan Twyman was sitting. He had been named in a felony warrant for alleged weapons violations and the white Kia sedan he was in matched a description provided by detectives, officials said at the time.
Twyman then put the car in reverse and both deputies opened fire before the car came to a stop nearby, officials said.
Lyons allegedly retrieved his semiautomatic assault rifle and shot into the vehicle after it stopped moving. Twyman was killed in the shooting, but his passenger, 22-year-old Deimeon Laffell was not injured.
Twyman, who was not armed during the incident, was the father of three children.
The fatal encounter drew outrage, intense scrutiny and calls for justice.
In releasing video of the incident, sheriff’s officials said the deputies fired some 34 rounds during the shooting and that Twyman had used his car as a “weapon.”
Just weeks after the shooting, Twyman’s family filed a claim for damages against the county. It alleged Twyman and his passenger “made no aggressive movements, furtive gestures or physical movements which would suggest to a reasonable law enforcement officer that either of them was armed with any kind of weapon.”
A coroner’s autopsy later revealed Twyman had been shot six times, with half of his wounds to the back.
The following year, L.A. County settled a wrongful death lawsuit by Twyman’s family for $3.9 million, the Los Angeles Times reported.
Lyons was eventually terminated by the department, the newspaper reported. The second deputy involved in the shooting, Christopher Muse, has not been charged, according to the Times.
“Protecting public safety is the highest responsibility for the entire law enforcement community. That extends first and foremost to those sworn to protect it,” District Attorney George Gascón said in a statement Thursday. “Policing is a difficult and trying job, but it does not excuse anyone from accountability under the law—especially when a human life is lost.”
Lyons is expected to be arraigned Friday.