The family of an unarmed woman in crisis who was shot and killed by a Redmond officer after calling police for help has asked the nascent state Office of Independent Investigations to review the case after King County prosecutors, while saying it was a “close call,” declined to file charges.
Andrea Churna, the 39-year-old mother of a young son, emerged from her apartment unarmed the night of Sept. 20, 2020, leaving a gun inside and lying on the floor in an attempt to surrender to officers. She lay there for nearly four minutes, waiting to be taken into custody, when a young officer armed with a high-powered, semi-automatic rifle shot her six times from about 17 feet away.
That officer, Daniel Mendoza, was just 18 months out of the academy and had been fired for poor performance by another agency, the Whatcom County Sheriff’s Office. He declined to cooperate with a King County Sheriff’s Office investigation into the shooting, refusing to be interviewed or to provide a statement about why he shot Churna. Several of his colleagues followed suit.
The city of Redmond ultimately paid $7.5 million last year to settle a wrongful-death claim from Churna’s family, and a city spokesperson said Thursday that Mendoza no longer works for the Police Department.
In a 39-page decline memorandum issued last week, the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office’s Public Integrity Team explained its decision not to charge Mendoza, saying he may have reasonably believed Churna was armed and posed a threat — and that nobody could prove otherwise.
But a consultant hired by the Prosecuting Attorney’s Office said he couldn’t fully parse whether the shooting was “objectively reasonable” and in line with the law and standard police practice without a statement from Mendoza.
“The determination of whether Officer Mendoza’s use of deadly force in these circumstances was … reasonable … and consistent with the generally accepted police practices cannot be made absent a statement from Officer Mendoza,” wrote the consultant, Jeff Noble.
Churna’s family had hired two consultants who questioned the legality and necessity of the shooting.
The agency’s findings prompted Churna’s family to turn to the state Office of Independent Investigations, created last year by the Legislature to independently investigate police-involved deaths and use of deadly force statewide. Spokesperson Hector Castro said the new office’s civilian investigators can reinvestigate — and possibly seek criminal charges — if warranted by new evidence.
The office has already received six submissions, including the Churna case. If the agency chooses to investigate any of the incidents, they would mark the first cases reviewed under the first-of-its-kind system nationwide.
On the county level, more than two dozen prosecutors reviewed the case, which was presented twice to senior managers for review for possible criminal charges, said Senior Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Joseph Marchesano of the Public Integrity Team.
“This one comes close,” Marchesano said. “We don’t want anyone to think that we had our heads in the sand over this. It was a tragedy.”
The sheriff’s investigation noted that the officers present that night were sent home without making statements and were not admonished from talking to one another. Most provided written statements six days after the shooting after consulting with a police guild attorney and otherwise declined to be questioned.
Six months later, two other officers who fired their weapons that night provided investigators with virtually unusable written statements that were unsigned and undated, according to records reviewed by The Seattle Times.
However, the prosecutors’ review concluded that — absent Mendoza’s statement — evidence would likely show he acted in good faith and that prosecutors couldn’t prove he knew Churna had left her handgun inside. Mendoza’s colleagues in their written statements reported that Churna, even after she was face-down on the ground, continued to squirm and lift her torso despite officers’ repeated commands that she lie still.
Port Orchard attorney Kim Zak, who represents the family, expressed disappointment in King County’s decision.
“Officer Mendoza was beyond reckless when he decided to shoot and kill Andrea Churna,” she wrote in a letter to the Office of Independent Investigations. “The shooting was not justified. We depend on the prosecutor’s office to make sure this can’t happen again. The King County Prosecutor’s failure to take action and hold Officer Mendoza accountable puts us all at risk.”
Churna’s father, Gig Harbor resident Michael Thomas, a retired Michigan State Police commander, said he was devastated by the shooting and is infuriated that Mendoza isn’t being held accountable.
“This decision is just insult to injury,” Thomas said.