On the evening of November 13, 2014, 22-year-old Ramiro James Villegas of Bakersfield, California, was fatally shot by Bakersfield Police Department officers after a traffic stop attempt. Officers say Villegas led them on a high-speed chase along Highway 178 that ended when his vehicle struck a signal pole at the Mount Vernon Avenue off-ramp; after he exited the car he reportedly approached officers and reached toward his waistband, and officers opened fire. Investigators later found Villegas was unarmed when he was shot.

The incident prompted controversy over Senior Officer Aaron Stringer’s conduct after Villegas was taken to Kern Medical Center. A trainee reported that Stringer visited the body, touched Villegas’s feet while saying tickle tickle, and made a comment about playing with dead bodies. That report led to an internal affairs inquiry; Stringer was placed on paid administrative leave and by 2015 was no longer employed by the department.

Villegas’s parents, Leticia DeLaRosa and Ramiro Villegas, filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the city of Bakersfield and five officers alleging excessive force and desecration of their son’s body, seeking punitive damages for civil rights violations, wrongful death, and tortious interference with the body. Does anyone have additional information about the crash, the shooting sequence, or the internal investigation that could shed light on unanswered questions?