Justice for Matthew Tucker

Justice for Matthew Tucker

Started
June 4, 2020
Petition to
County Supervisor Chuck Washington and 1 other
Signatures: 983,244Next Goal: 1,000,000
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Why this petition matters

Started by Temecula Protest

Matthew Tucker was murdered by two Riverside police officers, Rosa Calderon and Michael Hamilton, in Temecula on May 4th, 2016.

Matthew Tucker called the police to his house due to having suicidal thoughts. The responding officers did not secure the scene. They did not call for backup. They did not call in an expert in crisis intervention. Responding officers confronted a teenager, as he stood in his own garage holding a knife. They ordered the emotionally distraught teenager to drop his weapon. When the teen did not, officers disregarded all procedures for a suicide crisis and several cries from his mother for the officers to not shoot her son. Officers then fired several shots without any attempts to de-escalate the crisis, without employing any tools or techniques to apply less than deadly force.

According to the police’s own coroner Dr. Mark Fajardo, the shot to Matthew’s back was the fatal shot that took Matthew’s life. A shot that was fired after Matthew was already lying on the ground.

The police’s story was one that constantly changed and didn’t match the cause of death that the coroner identified. The county police department’s police report omitted the details of the situation regarding Matthew’s mental state before entering the house. In addition, Michael Hamilton had multiple accounts of racial discrimination charged against him in the past. 

We are trying to reach the attention of Mayor Maryann Edwards and DA Michael Hestrin to beg to have the officer involved in this disgusting situation fired as well as the policies to be implemented immediately.

We demand the immediate firing, with a public statement detailing the reasoning, of Michael Hamilton of the Riverside Country Police Department. 

Please help us get justice for Matthew and his family!

Support now
Signatures: 983,244Next Goal: 1,000,000
Support now
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Decision Makers

  • County Supervisor Chuck Washington
  • Sheriff Chad Bianco