Zambrano-Montes Shooting Update: Washington Governor Refuses to Remove Prosecutor From Police Shooting Probe

*We’re keeping the Zambrano-Montez police shooting on the front burner. These stories tend to fade quickly in the cluttered newsmedia landscape. They resurface as needed, to illutrate some new story or for context in others. But this is an important development. The Pasco, Washington Latino advocacy group Consejo Latino asked Governor Jay Inslee to remove the county investigator. The Governor refused. VL

By Roberto Ontiveros, Latin Post

Gov. Jay Inslee of Washington denied a request made by the Latino advocacy group Consejo Latino to remove Franklin County Prosecutor Shawn Sant from an investigation into the Feb. 10 deadly shooting of a Mexican orchard worker named Antonio Zambrano-Montes.

Zambrano-Montes, a 35-year-old undocumented immigrant, was shot at by three Pasco police officers last month in an altercation that was caught on video.

Zambrano-Montes had been throwing rocks at the police.

As reported in Reuters, Inslee asserted the prosecutors were obligated to fully investigate and prosecute crimes unless there were some “very specific, tangible and compelling reasons” offered.

The governor wrote the group, “I am not confident that those reasons have been established at this point in the ongoing investigation.”

Inslee stipulated he was “deeply troubled” by the death and was open to considering the request at a later time should the appropriate facts and circumstances come up.

Click HERE to read the full story.