Press Release: Family and Community Activists Plan Vigil for Unarmed Man Killed By Culver City Police

6:30 pm Saturday, May 13 – On the corner of Venice Blvd. and Cardiff Ave.

CULVER CITY, CALIF., May 11, 2023 – The family of Guillermo Medina will be joined by community activists at a peaceful vigil to be held to commemorate what would have been his 40th birthday as they seek justice for his death at the hands of Culver City Police.

Medina was unarmed and jogging away from where he had wrecked his car when he was shot in the back and killed on Dec. 18, 2022 by an officer with a military-style rifle.

Police had been called earlier to help when Medina, who had paranoid schizophrenia, was having a mental health breakdown and was acting erratically. Medina somehow eluded responding officers and led them on a vehicle chase that ended in the one-car wreck. His killing was captured on police body cameras and on a nearby security camera.

“Guillermo was having a mental health crisis. Don’t judge him because his mind played tricks on him. He was a phenomenal person,” his wife Adriana Medina said in a video interview with the Los Angeles Community Action Network.

Adriana Medina said Guillermo was an attentive husband, a gentle giant, a father who would do anything for his three children.

“He was far from perfect, but he was perfect for us,” she said. “It doesn’t matter what the issue is, if it’s mental health, if it’s substance abuse, whatever it is, (when) people need help, they need help. They don’t need bullets. They don’t need jail cells. Stop taking parents from their children. Stop taking children from their parents.”

“People don’t seem to understand that everybody means something to somebody. We needed Culver City PD to just help us get him some help. But they didn’t.”

The candlelight vigil is set for 6:30 p.m. Saturday, May 13, at the corner of Venice Boulevard and Cardiff Avenue, near to where Medina was shot.

“This happens again and again, where a cry for help ends in a death sentence,” said Marina del Rey civil rights attorney V. James DeSimone. DeSimone represents the Medina family in a civil suit against Culver City Police. “A CCPD Officer, who is supposed to be protecting people’s lives, shot a man in the back when all he had in his hand was a cell phone. If a cell phone is a threat, then who is safe?”

Los Angeles civil rights attorney V. James DeSimone has dedicated his 35-year law career to providing vigorous and ethical representation to achieve justice for those whose civil and constitutional rights are violated.

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V. James DeSimone

Attorney V. James DeSimone is a 35+ year experienced civil rights & employment lawyer in Southern California. Jim is a Super Lawyer, Rated “Superb” by Avvo, and is a US News & World Report Best Law Firm in California.