By Stephen Oduntan
Mickel Erich Lewis Sr. was driving with his girlfriend and her two teenage daughters last Friday night, sitting in the front seat of his pickup truck, when a Kern County Sheriff’s deputy pulled him over for a vehicle code violation.
It is unclear what transpired next. According to the Sheriff’s, a firearm was recovered at the scene, they have not confirmed whether Lewis threatened to use the weapon.
But Lewis is dead.
According to a Sheriff’s office press release, a KCSO deputy initiated the traffic stop on 39-year-old Michael Lewis’s 2008 black Chevrolet Tahoe. After the two briefly exchanged words, the deputy returned to his patrol vehicle. At some point during the traffic stop, Lewis then fled on foot for a short distance before returning to his truck and reached inside. He then lunged at the deputy, and the deputy fired shots.
That account was vigorously disputed by the family’s attorney Toni Jaramilla, who stated the deputy shot Lewis “while his arms were up,” and couldn’t possibly have posed a threat to the deputy. “What you have is a situation where another unarmed black man was executed in front of his family,” stated Jaramilla. “They just have no regard for human life.”
It doesn’t appear the deputy tried to deescalate the situation before shooting Lewis added Jaramilla who also questioned the integrity of the Sheriff’s department statement regarding the recovered weapon at the scene.
“My understanding is there was no weapon found anywhere near where Lewis was shot,” Jaramilla said.
Attorney Jaramilla has signaled her firm will conduct their own independent autopsy.
The officers did not immediately render medical aid to Lewis after he’d been shot explained Jaramilla and because of that they allowed several minutes to pass—critical minutes that could’ve prevented Lewis dying from his gunshot wounds.
Jamelah Lewis, Lewis’s niece, said that the deputy who pulled the trigger demonstrated a lack of empathy.
“The officer asked my cousin (one of the teenage daughters) ‘you think I wanted to do that?’ I thought that was very disrespectful because you just murdered her dad,” she said.
The niece addressed a crowd in front of the Halls of Justice this past Wednesday evening. She said her uncle possibly fled from police out of fear of going to jail.
Lewis was out on bail for at least three charges, including felon in possession of a gun and two counts of driving on a suspended license for DUI.
“The cops shot my uncle four times and the second bullet punctured his lungs. And then to make it worse my cousin Mickel Lewis Jr. was running to him to try and save his dad but the sheriff’s arrested him. He couldn’t even say bye to his dad,” she said.
The Kern County Sheriff’s Department and city officials did not respond to calls or emails regarding the Lewis shooting and death.
Kern sheriff deputies have been involved in nine fatal shootings this year, Lewis’s being the most recent in the Mojave Desert.
Lewis Jr. questioned the influence of race pertaining to his fathers shooting death at the hands of deputies. “If my father was white, or if my father was a different race – would they still have pulled the trigger?”
There is no body or dash camera footage of the incident.
