Another Long Awaited Investigation Released, Is Sedano’s Next?
Last week, just a few days after Our Town Reno published an update on the July 2018 Sparks police killing of Rolando Brizuela, the Washoe County District Attorney’s office released its long awaited investigation along with that night’s body cam footage. The report absolved the two police officers who shot and killed Brizuela of any wrongdoing or criminal charges. But even after reading the report, many in the community wondered why a man had to be shot to death on his own property following minor disputes with several neighbors, and why the situation couldn’t have instead de-escalated to where no one was killed.
Another local police killing for which the investigation has yet to be released by the same Washoe County District Attorney’s office is of Nico Sedano. Reno PD killed Sedano in March 2018 several months before the Brizuela killing.
Media reports said police shot at a vehicle rushing at them following reports of a burglary at Peckham Lane and Neil Road. No officers or other civilians were injured.
A relative of Sedano’s says she’s been told the investigation will soon be publicly released, but that they are still waiting. She said they don’t have a lawyer representing the family, due to a lack of funds, so they are very much in the dark as to what might be causing the delays.
The family held a fundraiser to be able to bury Sedano in Mexico, but had no other funds available for representation. The relative said another man was with Sedano the night of his killing, who recently got out of jail, but that he who won’t tell the family anything.
Above a video of recently released body cam footage in the Brizuela killing by Sparks PD. In Sedano’s killing by Reno PD, the family was told there was no video available.
No Answers, Names Of Officers, Videos, and Details Which Don’t Make Sense
“It just doesn't make any sense because he had, you know, he had no weapon, he had nothing and two officers loaded their guns on him,” the relative told us of what she was able to piece together from media reports and dispatch calls.
She says it took almost two weeks before the family was allowed to verify it was Sedano’s body, and that she counted dozens of bullet holes in his body. “He had bullet holes everywhere,” she told us. “I mean, from the palms of his hands to the bottom of his feet.”
She says the family was told cameras weren’t working in the area and that body cams weren’t being used. “They had an excuse for everything,” she told us. “Like supposedly there was no video at all.”
“Supposedly he hit an officer with the car, that's why they shot him,” she told us of the version of events she’s been able to constitute herself. “But I asked for the hospital report for the officer, because that's an injury on the job. You have to go. And he said, it wasn't that bad, that they didn't have to go to the hospital. I'm like, but that's protocol. Everything doesn't add up. It just doesn’t make sense.”
Media reports said that at the time of his killing Sedano had just become a young father. The relative said Sedano had previously gotten in trouble with the law, but she never expected another encounter would turn deadly.
“I just want to know. They won't even tell me who the officers were. I want to know why and what happened, why they felt so threatened that they had to unload that many bullets,” the relative told us. “I mean, one bullet would have been plenty. You know, I just feel like they're over excessive. They didn't have to do all that. I just feel like there's other ways to stop people, you know?“
Since Reno Police were involved, the protocol locally has been for the Sheriff’s Office to become the lead agency, working with investigators from the Sparks Police Department and the Washoe County District Attorney’s Office, which then reviews their investigation and releases it to the public.
The relative says this process clearly lacks independent oversight and that the long delays in releasing investigations creates more distrust. She concluded the interview saying she doesn’t feel that even when the report comes out that we will know the truth of what happened that night in late March 2018.