Richmond police officers ignored their training, trapped an unarmed, mentally ill man like an “animal” and unleashed “a hail of bullets” at him during a deadly encounter early last year, an attorney for the slain man’s family claimed Tuesday.
The officers’ actions are now the subject of a federal civil rights lawsuit filed this week by the family of 51-year-old Jose de Jesus Mendez-Rios, whose death in early February 2025 has since become the subject of a California Department of Justice investigation.
The family’s filing targets the city of Richmond and the two officers — Nicholas Remick and Jessica Khalil — who opened fire that night. One of those officers, Remick, went on to kill a second person six months later, in a shooting that the Contra Costa County District Attorney’s Office recently deemed justified.
On Tuesday, the attorney for Mendez-Rios’ family decried the police department for having “unleashed a fury, a volley of bullets” at a man who was clearly in a mental health crisis, “essentially ensuring that he would not survive this encounter.” It all happened as officers “abandoned” their training the night of Mendez-Rios’ death, despite the fact there was “every reason to take time, maximize time and distance, to set up physical barriers and essentially wait him out.
Attorney Adanté Pointer speaks as Imer Mendez, son of Jose de Jesus Mendez-Rios, listens during a press conference at the Lawyers for the People office in Oakland, Calif., on Tuesday, March 17, 2026. Mendez-Rios was shot and killed by Richmond police on Feb. 4, 2025 after holding a knife sheath. (Jane Tyska/Bay Area News Group)
“What took place was simply a tragedy,” the attorney, Adante Pointer, said at a press conference announcing the lawsuit. “And it was a preventable tragedy.
“That is not how we expect any decent human to treat another human — especially when that’s supposed to be a public servant, and especially one who has sworn to uphold the law,” Pointer added. “It has essentially been swept under the rug.”
The impacts from Mendez-Rios’ death continue to this day, his family said. Mendez-Rios’ son, Imer Mendez, recounted losing his job after the shooting, because he couldn’t get out of bed and process the grief of his father’s killing.
“I think about him every day,” said Imer Mendez, 23, who appeared at Tuesday’s press conference alongside his mother and Mendez-Rios’ wife, Rosa Hernandez.
Imer Mendez, son of Jose de Jesus Mendez-Rios, speaks about his dad during a press conference at the Lawyers for the People office in Oakland, Calif., on Tuesday, March 17, 2026. Mendez-Rios was shot and killed by Richmond police on Feb. 4, 2025 after holding a knife sheath. (Jane Tyska/Bay Area News Group)
The lawsuit claimed officers failed to appreciate the nuances of dealing with a man whom they had become “familiar” with, as a result of his well-documented history of mental illness.
Mendez-Rios had a “cordial and hopeful relationship” with his wife while sober and stable, yet his history of addiction and mental health problems ultimately prompted Hernandez to obtain a restraining order against him, according to the family’s lawsuit. She contacted police “several” times during their relationship for help with “mental health interventions.”
That order had been in place the day of Mendez-Rios’ death, when he went to Hernandez’s Richmond house after having “again fallen into the grip of addiction and was exhibiting behavior consistent with a mental health crisis,” the lawsuit said. She called Richmond police shortly after 5:30 p.m. on Feb. 4, 2025, and officers spent the next three hours looking for Mendez-Rios.
Jose de Jesus Mendez-Rios,51, was killed by Richmond police during an encounter near Carlson Boulevard on Feb. 4, 2025. His family filed a federal civil rights lawsuit targeting the city of Richmond and the two officers. (Photo courtesy of Lawyers for the People)
Police finally found him along railroad tracks near Carson Boulevard and followed him for about 45 minutes, during which they claimed they saw him holding a knife, the family’s filing said. At one point, officers said Mendez-Rios appeared to hold the apparent knife at his neck, as if he might harm himself, the lawsuit said.
The lawsuit suggested officers “needlessly” abandoned their training by “failing to establish a reasonable perimeter, failing to erect or utilize physical barriers between the officers and Mr. Mendez-Rios, failing to use one point of contact to establish rapport and communicate orders to Mr. Mendez-Rios and not maximizing time and distance in order to avoid provoking a confrontation and/or the use of deadly force.”
At one point, an officer fired a less-lethal projectile at Mendez-Rios, after which another officer used a stun gun on him, the lawsuit claimed.
Mendez-Rios then “fled with his hands raised” as the two Richmond officers opened fire at him, the lawsuit said. The officers together fired at least 10 rounds, several of which came after Mendez-Rios “lay on the ground motionless,” the lawsuit said.
Attorney Adanté Pointer speaks during a press conference at the Lawyers for the People office in Oakland, Calif., on Tuesday, March 17, 2026. To the right is Imer Mendez, son of Jose De Jesus Mendez, and to the left is Rosa Hernandez, wife of Mendez. Far left is attorney Marlon Monroe. Mendez-Rios was shot and killed by Richmond police on Feb. 4, 2025 after holding a knife sheath. (Jane Tyska/Bay Area News Group)
A two-minute snippet of one officer’s body-worn camera footage of the encounter — which the family publicized Tuesday — shows authorities speaking to Mendez-Rios in English and Spanish, with one officer imploring him: “I need you to drop the knife, bud.” Authorities later determined that Mendez-Rios had only been holding a knife sheath during the encounter.
Mendez-Rios’ son criticized the officers who responded that day for escalating the situation by not designating a single person to speak with his father.
Imer Mendez, son of Jose de Jesus Mendez-Rios, listens as attorney Adanté Pointer speaks during a press conference at the Lawyers for the People office in Oakland, Calif., on Tuesday, March 17, 2026. Mendez-Rios was shot and killed by Richmond police on Feb. 4, 2025 after holding a knife sheath. (Jane Tyska/Bay Area News Group)
“Everyone’s yelling at him — how do they expect someone who’s going through a mental health crisis to be able to listen to all that?” Imer Mendez said. “It’s like trying to play Simon Says, with like six people yelling at you, and if you do something wrong, you’re out. It’s ridiculous.”
A Richmond police spokesman, Lt. Donald Patchin, declined to comment Tuesday on the lawsuit, citing “an active and ongoing investigation, and the potential for related litigation.”
The California Department of Justice is investigating the killing under AB 1506, a law passed in 2020, which requires the Attorney General’s Office to examine killings by police officers of unarmed people. That inquiry remains open, and a spokeswoman for the agency declined to comment on it Tuesday.
The lawsuit marks at least the third time Remick has been named in police brutality lawsuits in recent years. One alleges he was present when two other officers injured a man during an arrest. The other says Remick and a second officer, Sgt. Alexander Caine, sent a man named Kwesi Guss to the emergency room with multiple injuries for filming police as they arrested another man for a high-speed chase.
Jakob Rodgers is a senior breaking news reporter. Call, text or send him an encrypted message via Signal at 510-390-2351, or email him at jrodgers@bayareanewsgroup.com.
Attorney Marlon Monroe speaks during a press conference at the Lawyers for the People office in Oakland, Calif., on Tuesday, March 17, 2026. To the right is Imer Mendez, son of Jose de Jesus Mendez-Rios, and to the left is Rosa Hernandez, wife of Mendez-Rios. Far left is attorney Adanté Pointer. Mendez was shot and killed by Richmond police on Feb. 4, 2025 after holding a knife sheath. (Jane Tyska/Bay Area News Group)