Ricardo "Ricky" Ramirez Jr.

With the cop “hiding behind tinted glass, without any warning, Ricky was killed,” his father Ricardo said at a press conference a few weeks later. “His only crime was being young and of color. This has to stop!”

Eighteen-year-old Ricky Ramirez was on vacation with friends in Los Angeles after graduating high school when an unmarked car with black-tinted windows pulled up behind and provocatively followed their car. The friends pulled over; an unarmed Ramirez and another passenger got out with palms up and arms extended. Ramirez approached the car on the driver’s side, and without warning a shot was fired into his chest through the car window. Ramirez fell, mortally wounded, and the others fled in fear for their lives, unaware that the shot was fired by LAPD undercover cop Michael Pounds.

Pounds supposedly began tailing the vehicle based solely on a false report by another cop that the occupants were all wearing ski masks like those involved in a nonviolent encounter with another vehicle.

As described by the family attorney Christopher Dolan, Pounds “tailgated and aggressively menaced” the car Ramirez was riding in. Pounds “never, in any way, identified himself as a cop. He didn’t turn on his blue and red strobes, use the P. A. system, issue any command to stop, nor warn he was going to shoot.” In filing the civil lawsuit, Dolan explained, “A 2023 study reported that over 1,020 people in LA County have been killed by police since 2020. The report revealed that almost all the dead were men, nearly 80% were Black or Latino and nearly 92% were shot to death….Ricky, a Latino man, was shot and killed by a senior officer, concealed behind tinted windows in an unmarked car.”

Ramirez’s family says Ricky’s dream was to become a caregiver for people in need, following in the footsteps of his mother and sister. The family filed a wrongful death lawsuit in August 2024. The California Department of Justice reportedly has the incident under investigation, but no charges have been filed against Pounds.

All LAPD records about the death of Ricky Ramirez and the events surrounding it must be opened to the public as an elementary act of self-defense for the black and Latino communities! All statements by witnesses and the cops must be released along with all reports and recordings (audio and video), texts and emails, Pounds’ personnel files from the LAPD and any other police agencies he has worked. Justice for Ricky Ramirez!