RICHMOND — The Contra Costa County District Attorney’s Office is considering criminal charges against a Richmond police officer who allegedly hit a man with a stun gun dozens of times during a struggle last April.
Officer Eric Smith Jr. is on administrative leave in connection with the April 9 incident, in which he allegedly hit a 33-year-old man with a stun gun about 35 times during a scuffle on the ground. Smith was attempting to arrest the man after a brief car chase earlier in his graveyard shift, according to multiple law enforcement sources.
The Richmond Police Department has called a Wednesday news conference to announce the investigation and release videos of the alleged incident, which was captured by a nearby surveillance camera as well as Smith’s body camera, authorities said. In his report, Smith said he believed the man was in possession of a firearm, but no gun was found on the man, law enforcement sources told this news organization.
Smith saw the man — a suspect in an earlier brief car chase — parked in a parking lot on San Pablo Avenue, in San Pablo, around 1 a.m. on April 9. The officer was alone and would later report to higher-ups that the suspect resisted and tried to run from him. Smith allegedly attempted to stun the man, then physically struck him with the Taser when it failed to deploy properly, according to law enforcement sources.
Smith, a Brentwood native, previously worked for the San Francisco Sheriff’s Department and the Pittsburg Police Department, as well as served a prior brief stint with RPD, according to state payroll records. In June 2021, the city of Richmond released a short biographical video about Smith in which he called law enforcement “my calling” and said his goal was to “be on the street where I can reach people and prevent them from getting to the county jail.
“I think being a police officer is the best job and it can be very rewarding,” Smith said in the video. He later added, “I just wanna be somewhere where I’m long gone, 30 years from now, people can say, ‘Yeah maybe I didn’t like this situation but Officer Smith showed me that there’s hope.’ ”
It is rare, but not unheard of, for an officer to face criminal charges in connection with a use-of-force incident in Contra Costa County. A decade ago, a jury acquitted former Richmond police Officer Dedrick Riley of assault charges related to a 2009 drug arrest. Riley stayed on the force, became the subject of at least two more administrative investigations, and retired last year before the most recent probe could be completed.
More recently, District Attorney Diana Becton’s office prosecuted former sheriff’s Deputy Andrew Hall for shooting a 32-year-old Newark man during a low-speed chase in Danville. Hall was convicted of assault, but jurors could not reach a verdict on a manslaughter charge. He was sentenced to six years in state prison.
Source: www.mercurynews.com