'We Prayed He Would Get Jail Time': Ex-Contra Costa Cop Gets 6 Years in Prison for Killing Man With Mental Illness

The on-duty shooting Hall was convicted for took place on Nov. 3, 2018, when police, responding to calls of a suspicious person, attempted a traffic stop in the town of Danville. Arboleda led police on a nine-minute car chase toward downtown Danville. Dashcam video showed him pulling over multiple times, and then driving off when officers got out of their patrol cars.

Hall arrived on the scene and tried to block Arboleda’s car at an intersection. Police video showed Hall get out of his car and step into the path of Arboleda’s vehicle, firing into the windshield and window.

To convict Hall of assault, the jury must have found that his decision to shoot Arboleda nine times as he drove slowly forward was unjustified and therefore amounted to an excessive and unnecessary use of force.

Arboleda’s mother, Jennie Atienza, spoke at Friday’s hearing and urged the judge to provide justice for her son.

“The emptiness is still here,” Atienza told Mockler. “It’s there and it won’t go away. I would never be the same again. And one half of my life died with my son.”

Mockler was highly critical of a probation report submitted to the court for Hall, and found that it relied on evidence that was not included at trial and ignored key evidence that the jury relied on to reach a guilty verdict.

Mockler said she had a lot of empathy for Hall who, according to the probation report, “had a very unstable, chaotic childhood and he raised himself up by the bootstraps to become something better.” But she said the same thing could be said for many of the defendants who come through her courtroom. Ultimately, she found probation was not appropriate.

She sentenced Hall to three years for the assault conviction and an additional three years for causing great bodily injury. She dismissed a second enhancement that could have added more time. Because Hall was convicted of a violent felony, Mockler said he will have to serve 85% of his sentence.

The Contra Costa County district attorney’s office wrote in a statement that the six-year sentence reflected the seriousness of Hall’s crime and the need for accountability.

Charges against Hall for the 2018 shooting were announced in April 2021, about a month after Hall fatally shot Tyrell Wilson, an unhoused Black man who was allegedly throwing rocks on the freeway. Bodycam video of the incident shows Hall pursued Wilson across an intersection. Wilson pulled out a knife and Hall shot him.