Killing of Sean Monterrosa

Sean Monterrosa was a 22-year-old man of Argentinean and Salvadoran descent who grew up in San Francisco, attended an arts high school, and had worked for a Boys & Girls Club and as a carpenter. Less than an hour before he was killed, he texted his sister a petition demanding justice for George Floyd. He was killed at 12:30 a.m. on June 2, 2020, in Vallejo, California, while the city was under curfew due to looting. Police were responding to a reported looting at a Walgreens; after a car chase in which a fleeing vehicle rammed and injured an officer, three detectives arrived at the scene in an unmarked pickup truck. Detective Jarrett Tonn, seated in the back, fired a rifle five times through the truck's windshield, striking Monterrosa in the back of the head. Monterrosa was on his knees with his hands above his waist at the time. No firearm was found; police said officers mistook the end of a hammer protruding from his sweatshirt pocket for a gun. Monterrosa later died at a local hospital.

Jarrett Tonn had been a Vallejo police officer since 2014, previously working for the Galt Police Department. Monterrosa's killing marked the fourth time in five years Tonn had shot at someone while on duty; none of the three prior shootings were fatal, and Tonn was cleared of wrongdoing in internal investigations each time. Vallejo police had shot 32 people and killed 18 over the prior decade without any officer being fired for a shooting, and the department had the highest per-capita rate of police shootings in Northern California as of May 2019.

Police delayed disclosing Monterrosa's death for over a day and gave shifting accounts of the incident, including conflicting statements about whether Monterrosa "pointed" a gun. Body camera footage, released weeks later, did not show Monterrosa before the shooting but captured Tonn firing before his vehicle fully stopped and making statements afterward questioning what Monterrosa had "pointed." The windshield through which Tonn fired was later destroyed without authorization by a city employee, prompting a separate California Department of Justice investigation into the destruction of evidence; Vallejo police officer Michael Nichelini was later fired in connection with this, though an arbitrator overturned his termination in December 2022.

In 2022, an independent investigation found Tonn had violated department policies, including unreasonable use of deadly force and failure to activate his body camera, leading to his firing. In August 2023, an arbitration decision reinstated Tonn with back pay, finding his use of force legally justified under California law and finding procedural flaws in the earlier investigation. The Monterrosa family filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the city of Vallejo and Tonn in August 2020, alleging unjustified use of deadly force. The case prompted sustained protests in Vallejo, San Francisco, and Sacramento calling for accountability and the appointment of a special prosecutor.