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Sean Monterrosa: Vallejo police under investigation after killing of unarmed man

The California department of justice has launched an investigation and reform initiative for the Vallejo police department, which is facing national scrutiny after an officer killed an unarmed 22-year-old amid protests this week.

The state’s attorney general, Xavier Becerra, announced a “review and reform agreement” with the troubled police agency on Friday, three days after an officer fatally shot Sean Monterrosa, who police say was on his knees with his hands up when he was killed.

Related: California: Vallejo police kill unarmed 22-year-old, who was on his knees with his hands up

Police in the Bay Area city were responding to a call of alleged looting on Monday evening when they found the 22-year-old outside a Walgreens store. An officer in an unmarked vehicle fired five bullets at him through his windshield. The police chief claimed the officer believed Monterrosa had a gun, but he only had a hammer in his pocket, the chief said.

The Bay Area News Group identified the officer as Jarrett Tonn and reported that this was the fourth time in five years that he has fired his gun at a person on duty, including two shootings within a six-week period in 2017. Those previous shootings were not fatal, according to the paper. The officer and his lawyer could not immediately be reached, but the police union defended his actions, saying “he had no other reasonable option” and was “protecting himself and fellow officers”.

The intervention by the state DoJ is significant for Vallejo, where civil rights activists have for years described an out-of-control police department that allows officers to kill and brutalize black and Latino residents with impunity. In recent years, there have been more than a dozen officers on the force who have killed multiple people, and the department’s rate of killing has typically been significantly higher than the national average and other northern California cities. One officer killed three men in a five-month period and was promoted.

Through a three-year agreement, the DoJ and Vallejo police will work together on “training, policy and transparency”, focusing on “use-of-force procedures, anti-bias and community policing and accountability”, Becerra said. Asked why the state was only reviewing the agency now, even though calls for state intervention dated back nearly a decade, he said it was an issue of limited DoJ resources.

The calls for state oversight escalated last year after Vallejo police killed Willie McCoy, a 20-year-old who had been sleeping in his car when six officers fired 55 bullets in 3.5 seconds. The city eventually determined the killing of McCoy in February 2019 was “reasonable” despite widespread outrage over footage of the death.

Marc McCoy, Willie’s brother, said in an interview on Friday that Becerra’s announcement was “long overdue”, and that it seemed clear he was reacting to the protests sweeping the nation over the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

“People are rioting. Is he doing this to appease the situation or is he doing it to fix the problem?” he said. “We need solutions. He had an opportunity in the past to investigate, and he declined.”

McCoy said he was glad to see a “domino effect” from the protests this week but added: “When we talk about police investigating themselves … often there’s only an investigation, and there’s no real outcome.”

Related: Movement to defund police gains 'unprecedented' support across US

Vallejo’s new police chief, Shawny Williams, has faced an intense backlash for his handling of this week’s killing, especially after he failed to share any details about the death for two days, focused on his concerns about looting in a press conference, and defended his officer’s decision to fire at an unarmed individual from inside the police car.

In a statement about the DoJ agreement, he said the department had “reform projects” and a “desire to improve”, adding: “I welcome all voices to the table. We are stronger together.”

Protests and vigils were planned for Monterrosa in San Francisco, where he grew up.

Becerra’s promise for reforms comes as calls to “defund the police” are growing across the country, with activists arguing that the traditional policy reforms have failed and that the best way out of this crisis is to take funding away from law enforcement and redirect it to social services and resources for black communities.