This is the shocking moment a Crips gang member is shot dead in court after launching at a witness with a pen.
The shocking footage shows the moment Siale Angilau, 25, a member of the Tongan Crips gang, stood up, grabbed a pen or pencil, and ran towards the witness stand before launching his body over it in 2014.
The witness, another gang member who was shackled and chained, managed to sink into the corner of the courtroom and avoid the 25-year-old. He was not hurt. The video then shows a deputy US Marshal, identified in court documents as Jane Doe, pull her gun from its holster and rapidly fire four shots at Angilau. ‘Drop the pen, drop the pen out of your hand,’ another officer out of the shot can be heard yelling at the defendant. The video is muzzed to keep the judge, officers and any witnesses in the courtroom from being identified. US District Judge John Dowdell made the video public when he dismissed a lawsuit brought by Angilau’s family claiming excessive force.
‘The video completely contradicts the plaintiffs’ argument that Angilau stopped posing a danger within less than one second of launching himself over the witness stand while making a stabbing motion with a pen in his hand,’ Dowdell wrote in a statement obtained by Deseret News. The entire incident lasts for roughly 24 seconds. ‘Angilau was in custody, but he essentially had escaped custodial control for those seconds during which he was executing his plan to assault the witnesses. His attack was stopped by the shots that Jane Doe rapidly fired, in less than one and one-half seconds.’ An FBI investigation also found the shooting was justified by law. But Angilau’s family thinks a jury should see the video to decide if the marshal used appropriate force, according to the family attorney Robert Sykes.
Sykes claims because the witness got out of the way he wasn’t in danger when the marshal opened fire. ‘Those last three shots were all after he’s been shot once down on the ground in the back, and that’s the problem I have with this case,’ he told the News. ‘There was no necessity to use force.’ Angilau’s family first filed the wrongful death lawsuit in 2014 – claiming he shouldn’t have been shot because it was ‘partially unreasonable, reckless and constitutionally excessive.’  They were allowed to view the video but not release it. After Angilau was shot on April 21, 2014, and rushed to the hospital with at least one chest wound. He later died there from his injuries.
He was in court after being one of 17 people named in a 29-count racketeering indictment filed in 2008, which accused gang members of conspiracy, assault, robbery and weapons offenses. Angilau was also accused of assaulting two federal officers and brandishing a firearm. He was the last defendant in the case to stand trial. Before he died, the incident prompted US District Judge Tena Campbell, who was hearing the case, to declare a mistrial.
Photo Credit: Getty
