Los Angeles prosecutors say they won�t charge a synagogue security guard accused of shooting a person who was recording video of the building.
The Los Angeles Times reports the announcement came as the woman who was shot filed a civil lawsuit against the guard and his employer.
Edduin Zelayagrunfeld, 44, was arrested on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon on February 14, after the shooting outside the Etz Jacob Congregation / Ohel Chana High School on Beverly Boulevard.
In a declination memorandum, Deputy Dist. Atty. John Harlan wrote that prosecutors ultimately would not be able to disprove Zelayagrunfeld was acting in self-defense.
The victim was a transgendered woman named Zhoie Perez, 45. She is a YouTube personality and self-described First Amendment �auditor� who pushes the bounds of her rights in public spaces and posts videos online.
Her lawsuit alleges assault and discrimination. The guard and the synagogue didn�t immediately comment on the lawsuit.
Perez uploaded almost an hour of video to her YouTube channel, where she is better known as �Furry Potato,� in which she is seen observing Frum girls on the street, while wondering aloud if it�s a �Jewish tradition� that they are dressed a certain way. She circles the school building while filming and making comments. Furry Potato was then confronted by a security guard, who repeatedly asks her to stay away from the building.
Furry Potato then approached a security guard standing behind a fence. The guard asked her to leave the area while constantly moving his hand toward his firearm, even though she is standing on a public sidewalk.
The guard drew a firearm and pointed it low, holding it steady while threatening to shoot�Furry Potato. The gaurd then appeared to lower the gun for a moment, but quickly raised it back up. At that moment the gun went off, and�Furry Potato began shouting �(Expletive) shot me. (Expletive) shot me in the leg!�
Later in the video, the security guard can be heard saying he fired a �warning shot� and it was aimed �at the ground�.
Furry Potato suffered what she described as a �deep graze� and was treated and released from a hospital within hours of the clash. The bullet that struck Perez ricocheted off the sidewalk, according to the district attorney�s memo.
Before the shooting, Zelayagrunfeld had asked school staff to move students to a safe location, triggering a lockdown, according to the memo filed by the district attorney�s office. Taken together with recent surges in anti-Semitic hate crimes and the mass shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh roughly four months earlier, prosecutors believed the guard�s �perception of Perez�s behavior as dangerous was reasonable.�
�Perez went to a Jewish school, and place of worship, dressed in all black and with a backpack secured to her body by a harness,� the document read. �As Zelaya told detectives, Perez�s backpack could have contained a bomb, and her attire could have concealed a firearm or other deadly weapon.�
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcDCdF7H1mo
READ MORE:�Los Angeles Times�
Join the official YWN WhatsApp status
5 Responses
Guard is one very lucky guy that he’s not being charged.
I still have the question, why the police weren’t called immediately. The guard draws a firearm, the school has a lockdown and the police aren’t called????? Very strange.
I know this is just a copy from another source (the LA Times). But can you not change the �she� pronouns to what it should say, I.e. �he�?
I hope HIS lawsuit is thrown out.
Why is YWN bowing to PC terror by referring to this He, as a She ??