Police receive threats in MacDonald shooting

The two officers involved in the shooting death of an 18-year-old Huntington Beach woman in Sun View Park have received threats against their lives, the city’s police chief said this week.

The names of the officers have been withheld since the Aug. 25 shooting of Ashley MacDonald, who was wielding some kind of knife and advanced on officers, refusing to drop the weapon.

Officers fired multiple times, resulting in 17 gunshot wounds and killing MacDonald.

“Both officers have been subject to direct and indirect threats since the incident occurred,” Chief Ken Small said Monday.

Until told to do so by legal council, the records will not be released by Huntington Beach police, Small said.

Small said that holding the records was not a means of covering up questionable pasts of either officer.

“There’s nothing previous in their backgrounds that has been under investigation,” Small said. “There’s nothing that we would be ashamed of.”

In a letter published last week in the Independent, Small personally backed the officers, who were hired during his time as chief.

Both are fine police officers who have done an excellent job since being hired, Small said in his letter.

The Orange County Sheriff’s Department — which investigates officer-involved shootings for Huntington Beach police and other local law enforcement agencies — have denied a public records request made by the Independent, claiming the names fall under confidential information in an ongoing investigation.

According to Rich McKee of Californians Aware, a organization for open access to records kept by all public agencies, the names of officers involved in shootings falls under public information, the same as calls for service, which are available for anyone in the public to read through.

“We’re not talking about whether the officers were using their weapons appro- priately or not,” McKee said. “We’re just asking for the facts, and facts are something due the public without question.”

For Small the issue is simple: He wants to keep his officers safe, especially in their private lives. Personal information, such as home addresses, can easily be procured through the Internet, he said.

In his letter, Small said he agreed with concerns from the public that “the conduct of law enforcement officers (and law enforcement agencies) should be carefully reviewed, especially when deadly force is used.”

“What I cannot agree with is the decision many people have made about the conduct of the officers based on the limited information that is available today,” he said.

Anticipating a comprehen- sive and thorough investig- ation from the sheriff’s depart- ment, Small said he is anxious to have the report in his hands in hopes of learning from what occurred that morning in Sun View Park.

“Every time an incident like this occurs, we look at it in terms of not just the officers’ conduct but training,” Small said. “We want to learn from it.”

Huntington Beach Police declined to confirm whether the officers were still on administrative leave, however Orange County Sheriff’s spokesman Jim Amormino said both officers are back on duty.

“I was told they had both returned,” Amormino said.

Reports by MacDonald’s friends and family that the knife she was carrying was a small box-cutter were incorrect, Amormino said.