California Attorney General Office stonewalls Justice for Andy Lopez!

Justice for Andy Lopez Cruz! [link]

"Justice Coalition for Andy Lopez (JCAL) Requests Meeting Next Week with AG Kamala Harris"
2013-02-13 from JCAL:
On February 6th, JCAL wrote a five-page letter, based in law and fact, to AG Kamala Harris requesting she authorize of an independent, impartial investigation into the shooting death of Andy Lopez in Santa Rosa, CA on Oct. 22nd 2013. Per the 2/6 JCAL letter, “[T]he DA’s [Jill Ravitch] review process has been so wrought with subterfuge, delay and political taint that there is no way that the public has faith that the matter will be adjudicated fairly and impartially under the auspices of DA Ravitch and heroffice.”
As no response of any kind had been received by JCAL as of 2/11, a follow-up letter, dated 2/11 (attached), and email, dated 2/12, were sent to the AG’s Office requesting a personal meeting next week in Sacramento between AG Harris and JCAL Counsel Jon Melrod and well-known JCAL Chicano Activist Miguel Molina.
Per the 2/11 letter, Jonathan Melrod wrote, “We are hopeful that intervention by these distinguished legislators (see letter) and your office will facilitate the creation of an impartial independent investigation into Andy’s death. For reasons set forth in the Feb. 6th letter, we have lost all faith in the Sonoma County DA’s office and do not believe that adjudication of criminal liability on Deputy Gelhaus’ part can be fairly, objectively and withtransparency be ascertained by the SoCo DA’s office.”
According to JCAL activist Miguel Molina, “We’re pretty confident AG Harris will set a meeting with us. With the changing demographics in California, the Chicano population is becoming a powerful political force throughout the State. It would be a terrible breach of her responsibility as the highest elected legal authority in the State to fail to meet with JCAL over this pressing and grave issue of the death our 13-year old Latino youth Andy Lopez. We’ll be in Sacto next week meeting with supportive Legislators and camping out at Ms. HarrisOffice if need be. This issue is not going away until we achieve Justice for Andy and the Latino Community of Santa Rosa.”
     

Request for Meeting to Discuss my Letter of February 6th re: Independent Investigation of the Oct. 22nd Shooting Death of Andy Lopez by Sonoma County Deputy Erick Gelhaus
February 12, 2014
From "Justice Coalition for Andy Lopez"
Santa Rosa, CA
Jonathan D. Melrod, Esq.
Attorney at Law
415. 806.0154
jonathan4536@sbcglobal.net

to

California Attorney General
Kamala Harris
California Department of Justice
P.O. Box 944255, Sacramento, CA 94244-2550

Dear Attorney General Harris:
On February 6, 2014, I sent a letter to your office requesting your intervention in the investigation of the Oct. 22nd shooting of Andy Lopez in Santa Rosa, CA. The request is made by the Justice Coalition for Andy Lopez(JCAL) pursuant to authority granted your office under Article 5, § 13 of the California Constitution and Government Code §§ 12511-12512. Much to my disappointment and the disappointment of JCAL, I have not yet received a response from your office.
As this matter is of such grave concern to our community, I thought it appropriate to suggest a personal meeting with you next week in Sacramento to discuss your response to our request. The proposed meeting would be with Miguel Molina, a long-time California Chicano community activist and member of JCAL and myself, Counsel for JCAL. We will certainly make ourselves available whenever is convenient for you so as not to disrupt your busy schedule.
Just to keep you up-to-date, we have been in discussions with a number of Legislative policy makers in Sacramento about Andy’s murder and what can be done to win Justice for the Lopez family and honor the short 13-year life of Andy by indicting the Deputy who killed him. We are planning to travel to Sacramento again in the near future, to further discuss these issues with supportive Legislators.
To date, we have been in contact with the offices of Ricardo Lara, Chair of the Latino Caucus in the Legislature, Manuel Perez, Assemblyman from the Imperial Valley, Jose Medina, Assemblyman from Riverside, Norma Torres, Assemblywoman from LA, Louis Alejo, Assemblyman from Santa Cruz and Marc Levine, our Assemblyman from Sonoma. We have suggested to the above-named Legislators, and others we will be meeting with, that they form an ad hoc Sacramento committee to seek Justice for Andy.
We are hopeful that intervention by these distinguished legislators and your office will facilitate the creation of an impartial, independent investigation into Andy’s death. For reasons set forth in my Feb. 6th letter, we have lost all faith in the Sonoma County DA’s office and do not believe that adjudication of criminal liability on Deputy Gelhaus’ part can be fairly, objectively and with transparency be ascertained by the SoCo DA’s office.
We look forward to hearing back from you as soon as possible regarding a meeting in Sacramento.
Sincerely,
[signed] Jonathan Melrod, Esq. on behalf of the JCAL