A 38-year-old mother of four is expected to lose her eye after an officer from the Los Angeles Police Department's Rampart Division shot her three times with a beanbag shotgun early Monday because he mistakenly thought the woman was reaching for a weapon hidden in her jacket.
Annette Amoroso of Westlake Village said in an interview from her hospital room Thursday that officers ordered her to the ground as they investigated a report that the sport utility vehicle in which she was a passenger was stolen.
"I was on my knees, with my hands up, and my back to them," said Amoroso, who is expected to have her right eye removed today. "First, they shot me in the shoulder. As I started to turn around, they shot me in the eye."
LAPD Capt. Michel Moore, commanding officer of the Rampart Division, said a preliminary investigation had led him to believe that Officer Craig Marquez opened fire on Amoroso after she was uncooperative during the investigation and reached into her jacket.
"It's very regrettable the type of injury she sustained," Moore said.
Moore said Marquez, a five-year LAPD veteran, interpreted the movement as a threat to his safety and that of his partners. Moore added that Amoroso swore at the officers and resisted their commands to lie prone on the pavement at a gas station at Vermont Avenue and Wilshire Boulevard.
Moore said police investigators interviewed civilian witnesses, including occupants of the car, who agreed that Amoroso was uncooperative. One witness, he said, supported the officers' contention that she reached inside her jacket.
The captain said the sequence of the shots fired from the beanbag shotgun, and the justification for each of the three shots, remained under investigation. Moore said police believe Amoroso was hit once while she was still standing, allegedly because Marquez felt she might try to enter the gas station mini-mart where she could have posed a risk to customers. Another shot, Moore said, was fired while she was on her knees and turning to face officers. That shot hit her in the eye. A third shot may have missed her entirely, Moore said.
Amoroso, who owns a beauty salon in Woodland Hills, agreed that she was reluctant to lie face-down on the pavement, saying she was dressed in a suede skirt that she did not want to ruin. She said she also had no idea that her friend's car had been reported stolen and therefore did not understand why officers had their guns drawn and were shouting orders at her.
