Body camera footage released this week exposes how El Centro police gunned down 14-year-old Mikey Jimenez. Jimenez was killed on October 5, yet the edited video was withheld for more than six weeks before being made public on November 19.
The footage leaves no ambiguity. Police opened fire almost immediately, unleashing a barrage of bullets at a terrified child who posed no threat. The video confirms Jimenez was executed in a storm of gunfire.
Police claim they were responding to an automated license plate reader alert that flagged a white Hyundai sedan as stolen. Officers located the car in the parking lot of a local restaurant, then moved in with multiple vehicles to box in 14-year-old Mikey Jimenez, setting the stage for the killing that followed.
The released footage shows Jimenez driving from behind the restaurant toward the exit as officers rush in. Before any officer opens fire, Jimenez turns the wheel to the right, appearing to steer away from police and their vehicles. Despite this clear attempt to avoid them, officers begin shooting almost immediately.
Jimenez was unarmed. Police nevertheless fired 29 rounds into the driver side of the car. Footage from two officers shows one drawing his weapon on the child the moment he steps out of his cruiser. A third officer, whose video has not been released, fires the first shots while standing directly in front of the moving vehicle. As the barrage continues, the car rolls to a stop. Officers scream “get out of the fucking car” and “get on the ground” at the dying 14-year-old. Jimenez was pronounced dead in the parking lot.
Two other juveniles were inside the car during the shooting. Somewhat miraculously, neither was injured. Police detained both of them after the killing but filed no charges.
The El Centro Police Department claims it released all available body camera footage. This raises only two possibilities: the officer who fired first either was not wearing a camera in violation of department policy that requires every officer to carry a “portable recording device,” or the department is withholding the footage.
So far, the El Centro police have provided no proof that Jimenez stole the vehicle. Even if he had, the maximum penalty for a first offense is three years in jail. It is not summary execution by a police firing squad.
All available evidence shows that the police made no effort to avoid deadly force. As was the case in the killing of Ta’Kiya Young in 2023, police purposefully positioned themselves in front of the moving vehicle so they could later claim “self defense.” A report by the New York Times found 400 killings by police of people in cars between 2016 and 2021. In many of those cases officers stepped into the vehicle’s path before opening fire and then claimed they were defending themselves.
Firing at a moving vehicle is widely recognized as reckless and ineffective. It rarely stops a car and often increases the risk of killing bystanders. For these reasons several major cities prohibit officers from shooting at moving vehicles and instruct them to move out of the vehicle’s path rather than open fire.
The El Centro police manual itself warns that “Shots fired at or from a moving vehicle are rarely effective” and instructs officers to “take reasonable steps to move out of the path of an approaching vehicle instead of discharging their firearm at the vehicle or any of its occupants.” The officers who killed Jimenez ignored these directives entirely.
In the footage that has been released, it is clear that the third officer, whose own video remains withheld, made no reasonable effort to step out of the vehicle’s path. His actions directly contradict the department’s stated policy and helped create the pretext for the fatal shooting.
Police claims that Jimenez was trying to ram them are contradicted by the video. The car halts the moment the shooting begins, which indicates Jimenez had his foot on or near the brake, not the accelerator. After officers fire multiple rounds and the vehicle has come to a complete stop, it begins to roll forward only because the wounded child can no longer hold the brake. This sequence strongly suggests he was trying to stop, not attack the officers.
This is the second police killing in El Centro this year. In May, officers shot and killed Ezequiel Obed Espinoza after a resident reported a man in her backyard with a gun. When police confronted him, Espinoza raised a bicycle seat, which officers later claimed resembled a “shooting stance.” They opened fire within seconds and declared him dead at the scene. The department released only limited, audio-less footage and brief excerpts of the 911 call and witness interviews. Nothing in the available material shows the officer attempting to determine whether Espinoza was actually armed or making any effort to deescalate before shooting him just 14 seconds after initial contact.
On November 22, family and friends of Jimenez held a press conference in El Centro demanding “Justice for Moso.” At the press conference, his mother, Alam Ureña, said her son was bipolar and that he had ADHD and depression. “But that doesn’t mean he had to die over this,” she said.
Jimenez’s family has called for an outside investigation by the California Attorney General, pointing to the close ties between the El Centro Police Department and the county prosecutors who would normally review the case.
Even if the Attorney General takes up the case, there is no guarantee the police will face any consequences. Just last month, more than a year after a grand jury indicted Ohio officer Connor Grubb for the murder of Ta’Kiya Young, a jury acquitted him of all charges, including murder, felonious assault, and manslaughter. Young was 21 and pregnant when Grubb shot her. Her unborn daughter, 25 weeks into the pregnancy, also died.
The United States justice system functions to shield police and the wealthy from accountability, while workers and the poor bear the brunt of police violence and prosecutorial power. It is a system structured to protect the state and capital, not the lives of those it routinely targets. It cannot be reformed or “re-imagined” to serve the class interests of workers.
Imperial County law enforcement has a long record of corruption. In 2014, the nearby Calexico Police Department was raided by the FBI during an investigation into extortion, drug use, drug smuggling, missing guns, theft of city funds, and the misuse of money by the local police union.
Family attorney Marcus Bourassa underscored this history during the November 22 press conference. “It’s the same district attorney’s office that they work with, day-in and day-out,” he said. “The fear is that if this is an in-house, inside investigation, we’re going to get the expected results that there’s no prosecution and therefore there will be no criminal justice.”
Imperial County is among the most impoverished regions in California, with unemployment reaching 20 percent. The area depends heavily on its two state prisons and a large Border Patrol facility, making law enforcement and corrections some of the only stable, better-paying jobs available and a major conduit for state and federal funding. This economic dependence creates strong political pressures on local officials to defend police involved in incidents like this, further undermining the already slim prospects for an impartial investigation.
Jimenez is one of at least 1,079 people who have been killed by the police in the US in 2025. For more than a decade, increasingly militarized police in the US have killed over 1,000 people every year.
The execution of a 14-year-old is an indictment of a decaying and discredited economic, social, and political order that now relies on naked violence to sustain itself. It unfolds as the US military murders fishermen and boaters in the Caribbean and as US-backed Israeli occupation forces execute Palestinians in the West Bank and carry out genocide in Gaza. A system that commits atrocities abroad is fully capable of committing them at home, reflected in the destruction of due process and the transformation of the police into judge, jury and executioner.