The California Attorney General’s Office will not retry the case of a former police officer who was charged with manslaughter for fatally shooting a man in a Costco in Riverside County, after a previous trial resulted in a hung jury.
Salvador Alejandro Sanchez, 33, of Corona was charged with two counts of assault and one count of voluntary manslaughter after he fatally shot Kenneth French, 32, at a Costco in Corona on June 14, 2019.
Those charges have now been dismissed.
Evidence presented at trial shows French struck Sanchez, a Los Angeles Police Department officer who was holding his infant son, in a food tasting line in the crowded store on Father’s Day weekend. Sanchez, who was off duty at the time, pulled a firearm and shot French four times and his parents, who were attempting to tell him their son was suffering from mental illness, once each.
The Riverside County District Attorney’s Office declined to charge Sanchez following a grand jury hearing that resulted in no criminal indictment. California Attorney General Rob Bonta, however, filed charges soon after.