O.C. district attorney begins releasing detailed findings from officer-involved shootings

The Orange County district attorney’s office Thursday began publishing detailed findings from its reviews of officer-involved shootings and in-custody deaths of inmates.

The office had previously provided only brief legal conclusions to police agencies about whether charges would be filed against the involved officers, without making the information public. The new policy mirrors that of Los Angeles County, where a district attorney’s spokeswoman said “closing letters” detailing the office’s conclusions have been publicly provided ever since prosecutors began investigating police shootings in the 1970s.

On Thursday, the Orange County district attorney’s office posted on its website the factual findings and legal conclusions from the January death of 25-year-old Colby Joshua Koenig, who was shot by three Laguna Beach police officers when he began to flee the scene of a collision he caused while driving on the wrong side of Pacific Coast Highway.

Believing Koenig posed a threat to police, pedestrians and emergency personnel, the officers fired 15 shots into the car, prosecutors wrote in the report. They concluded there was no criminal wrongdoing by the officers. Koenig died several hours later at a hospital.

One open-government advocate welcomed the move, saying transparency in police shootings is essential to ensuring that officers are held accountable.

“There’s not much doubt about the benefit in having the public informed and confident that shootings by police officers are checked thoroughly and held to a standard,” said Terry Francke, general counsel of the nonprofit Californians Aware. “When the district attorney says no laws were violated, it’s helpful to the credibility of that conclusion if that office releases its findings of fact.”

Susan Kang Schroeder, a spokeswoman for Orange County Dist. Atty. Tony Rackauckas, said the office is releasing the reports to better inform the public about prosecutors’ review of such cases.

“I don’t think the public knows how much work goes on in this type of investigation,” Schroeder said. “When the public knows all that we do and how thorough our work is, they could also understand why it takes so long and why we take the time that we do.”

victoria.kim@latimes.com