The California department of justice is reviewing the death of a southern California teenager in a shootout with law enforcement this week under a state law requiring the agency to investigate police shootings involving the death of unarmed civilians.
Savannah Graziano, 15, was killed on Tuesday amid a lengthy shootout between police and her father on a stretch of southern California highway.
Authorities had been looking for the girl and her father, 45-year-old Anthony Graziano, since Monday, after Graziano allegedly killed his estranged wife in the city of Fontana.
Deputies located Graziano’s pickup truck on Tuesday and chased it on a southern California highway for about 45 miles. Authorities said rifle shots were fired at the pursuing officers from Graziano’s truck, which became disabled after driving off the highway.
Stranded off the highway in Hesperia, north of San Bernardino, the firefight continued. Authorities said Anthony Graziano died in the truck while Savannah was fatally shot as she ran toward deputies amid a hail of gunfire.
Deputies did not initially realize it was the girl who was running toward them, the San Bernardino county sheriff said earlier this week, because she was wearing a helmet and a military-style vest that can hold armored plates.
Authorities say they still are investigating whether the girl was shot by deputies, her father or both.
The San Bernardino county sheriff, Shannon Dicus, said “evidence suggests” the teenager was involved in the gunfight.
The California department of justice said it was limited in the information it could provide, citing an ongoing investigation, but the agency’s involvement suggests Savannah Graziano may have been unarmed at the time of her death.
Authorities have said they have police video showing the freeway shootout but have not made that public.
Questions remain, too, about the events leading up to the chase.
Sgt Chris Surgent of the Fontana police department told the Associated Press on Thursday that video footage showed the girl in the back of her father’s pickup truck shortly before he gunned down her mother. Police did not release the videos.
Police had said on Wednesday that the father and daughter had been living out of his truck and hotels together before the killing and that they were trying to determine whether the teen had been abducted.
“Did she go willingly? Or was she actually abducted? We haven’t been able to prove that just yet,” Surgent said.