Judge consolidates lawsuits over El Monte officers’ deaths

A judge has consolidated two lawsuits filed against Los Angeles County stemming from the deaths of two El Monte police officers fatally shot by a convicted felon in that city.

Relatives of Officers Joseph Santana and Michael Paredes originally filed separate complaints against the county, District Attorney George Gascón and his office, the county Probation Department and the Siesta Inn motel for wrongful death. The Santana suit was filed in Los Angeles Superior Court on May 3 and the Paredes complaint in Pomona Superior Court on June 9.

The consolidation decision by Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Anne Hwang on Wednesday followed an agreement by the parties that combining the complaints would be in the interests of “judicial economy.”

On July 26, Hwang denied the county’s application for an immediate consolidation of the cases, finding that motion should have been brought on as a regular calendar item. She will now manage the combined cases until trial and the next hearing is scheduled Sept. 11.

Santana, 31, and Paredes, 42, responded to a report of a stabbing on June 14, 2022, at the Garvey Avenue motel, where Justin Flores was staying with his wife. The officers rescued the victim, but were subsequently shot to death by Flores.

According to the lawsuits, Flores, 35, was placed on probation in a plea deal in 2021 after he was arrested in 2020 for being a felon in possession of a firearm and methamphetamine. Even though Flores had a prior felony conviction for burglary, Gascón issued a directive barring the prosecutor handling Flores’ case from filing a strike allegation against him, disregarding California’s “three strikes” law, which requires prosecutors to plead prior known strikes, the suits allege.

Instead of being sentenced to prison, Flores was put on probation in March 2021 and was seen by his probation officer only once even though he was obligated to have monthly check-ins, according to the suits, which further state the Probation Department never initiated a requisite desertion proceeding that would have forced a revocation of Flores’ probation.

On June 2, 2022, the probation officer completed a phone check-in with Flores after learning he was in illegal possession of a gun and had beaten a woman, but Flores did not show up for a scheduled appointment four days later and his probation officer never reported the information to law enforcement, the suits state.

Although the probation officer filed for a revocation of Flores’ probation a day before the shootings, Flores was not taken into custody and he died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to his head on a sidewalk outside the motel after shooting the officers.

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