HAYWARD — Hayward Police have released body-worn camera footage showing officers fatally shooting a man last month.

The release of the video Thursday is the first footage released by the Hayward Police Department that shows two officers shooting to death 37-year-old Antonio Lacunas-Escobar of Hayward. The shooting officers have previously been identified as Alexander Robinson and Dominic Espino.

The edited video shows the officers carrying rifles with lights attached to them before shooting Lacunas-Escobar from a distance. Two of the three officers were positioned behind a barrier and above the parking lot where Lacunas-Escobar was walking.

Police have said officers responded about 9:40 p.m. Sept. 6 to reports of a man who pointed a gun at two women in a vehicle near the 22000 block of City Center Drive. The shooting happened about 20 minutes later after officers found a man matching the witness description, police said. The man was described by police as being “uncooperative” when officers tried to speak with him before walking away from the officers.

“Do not move. That him?” one officer can be heard asking. “Hey! Do not move. Hey! Do not grab. Quit grabbing. Hey! Quit grabbing. Stop. He is not complying, he is walking away from us toward the old City Hall parking structure.”

Another officer can be heard saying, “Hey, he’s got a gun in his hand.”

Numerous shots are then heard.

Acting Police Chief Bryan Matthews said at a news conference last month that “at least one witness saw the man point a firearm in the direction of officers and an officer-involved shooting resulted.”

A press release issued by the Police Department Thursday accompanying the video said that it was officers who reported the man “turned and pointed what appeared to be a firearm in the direction of officers,” not a civilian witness.

Police said a BB gun was found on the ground beneath Lacunas-Escobar that matched the description of the gun provided by witnesses.

Even so, Adante Pointer, an experienced civil rights attorney who’s represented families in cases of alleged police brutality but is not directly connected to this case, said that while police may have believed the man was carrying a firearm, “mere possession of a gun is not a death sentence.”

Pointer said the footage does not show any statements that would be consistent with Lacunas-Escobar pointing the gun toward officers, nor is there any visual evidence showing that a gun was pointed toward officers. He said Lacunas-Escobar appeared to be 50 to 100 yards away from the officers’ elevated position when he was shot.

“It’s like you got a deer in the bind, and the deer is kind of just walking away, trotting away,” he said. “And you have your position of cover and concealment and you open fire. It was like shooting into a barrel. This guy had nowhere to go.”

Pointer added: “The use of deadly force appears — to me — to be criminal, because the person was not posing an immediate threat to those officers when they opened fire on him. Period.”

The Alameda County District Attorney’s Office is conducting a criminal investigation into the shooting, police said. And a third-party consultant is conducting an investigation to determine whether the officers followed department policies. Those investigations, police said, will also be referred to the California Department of Justice. Police said the DOJ was notified “immediately” following the incident, but it said it would not be responding to the scene.

“These investigations are still ongoing, and our understanding of the incident may change as additional evidence is collected, analyzed and reviewed,” according to the police press release. “We do not draw any conclusions about whether the officers acted consistently with our policies and the law until all the facts are known and the investigations are complete.”

Robinson and Espino are young officers. Robinson joined Hayward police in 2021 after finishing his officer training and Espino joined the same year after 17 months at the Oakland Police Department, according to state employment records. They were put on administrative leave but both have returned to work, the department has said.