Police Brutality / Individual record
Donnell Thompson Jr.
The Washington Post's Fatal Force database records Donnell Thompson Jr. in a fatal on-duty police shooting on 2016-07-28 in Compton, CA. Individual circumstances and legal outcome require case-specific review.
- Record ID
- PB-488
- Incident date
- July 28, 2016
- Outcome
- Fatal
- Location
- Compton, CA
- Agency
- Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department
- Category
- Fatal on-duty police shooting
- Age (reported)
- 27
What happened
Donnell Thompson Jr., 27, an unarmed Compton man with developmental disabilities, was killed by Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies on July 28, 2016. Deputies were searching for a different man accused of carjacking and shooting at officers. They encountered Thompson in a yard and mistook him for that suspect. Initial official statements suggested Thompson had posed a threat, but he had no gun and officials eventually acknowledged the mistaken identity. His relatives brought a wrongful-death lawsuit. Los Angeles County approved an approximately $1.49 million civil settlement in September 2017. The unrelated suspect's alleged crimes must not be attributed to Thompson.
Investigation & findings
Individual legal and investigative outcome not yet reviewed.
Washington Post Fatal Force v2; 2015–2024
Source record details
- Source incident ID
- 1744
- Race code in source
- B
- Race source method
- not_available
- Gender (source)
- male
- Armed status (source)
- unarmed
- Flee status (source)
- other
- Agency IDs (source)
- 20
Sources & records
- Primary source
- Additional source
- Methodology and national police killings trackingMapping Police Violence · Dataset/methodology
- Fatal Force v2 — fatal on-duty police shootings, 2015–2024The Washington Post · Dataset