Videos will be key evidence in deadly Fullerton police encounter

 

Two videotapes have surfaced of the fatal confrontation between Fullerton police officers and a homeless man last month.

Both the FBI and the Orange County district attorney's office are investigating the incident, and the case has generated an emotional response from residents of the college town who are demanding answers from the police department.

Passengers boarded an Orange County transit bus on the night of July 5 with disturbing stories of a violent altercation they had witnessed between police and a homeless man at the  train depot.

“The cops are kicking this poor guy over there. All these cops,” one woman told the bus driver in a conversation captured on a grainy bus surveillance tape.

“He's almost halfway dead,” another passenger told the driver. “They killed him.”

Exactly what happened that night has become the subject of anger and much speculation in the Orange County community.

Officers responding to reports of an attempted car break-in near the station confronted a 37-year-old Kelly Thomas, a schizophrenic homeless man who had become a fixture in downtown Fullerton.

Six officers fought with Thomas and used a stun gun on him several times. He emerged severely beaten and in a coma. A photo taken of him at the hospital shows his face grotesquely swollen and covered with bruises and cuts. He died five days later after being removed from life support.