Manuel Levi Loggins Jr.: Attorney for Family of Marine Slain by Deputy Defends "Crash" Video

The late Sgt. Loggins

Various media sites are reporting that surveillance video released today shows an SUV driven by Marine Sgt. Manuel Levi "Manny" Loggins "crashed" through gates at San Clemente High School early Feb. 7--and moments before he was shot to death by an Orange County sheriff's deputy. But the Loggins family attorney suing the County of Orange and Orange County Sheriff's Department for alleged wrongful death says that all he sees in the grainy footage is a minor traffic accident.

Brian Dunn of the Cochran Firm in Los Angeles appeared this afternoon on CNN, whose anchor Brooke Baldwin explained the cable news network was still "processing" the 31 minutes of footage from a camera mounted at San Clemente High School.

CochranNation.com

Brian Dunn

Asked what Loggins and his daughters, ages 9 and 14, were doing at the high school between 4 and 5 a.m., Dunn explained the family is "very religious," that the Marine and his daughters made a "daily ritual" out of their "prayer walk" around the campus track, and that the time of day was "typical" because of the full-time military man's "very busy" schedule at nearby Camp Pendleton. "These particular mornings were a special private time with his daughters," Dunn said of Loggins.

Told that the video shows the SUV crashing through the school gates, Dunn, who has seen the footage, countered, "What we see is what appears to be a traffic accident. The vehicle was run or driven into the gate. The severity of the accident is unclear. The extent of the property damage is unclear. I have seen damage to the SUV."

The video also shows the SUV was followed by a sheriff's unit with its lights on.

"I think what's important about this video is not what it shows but what it doesn't show," observed Dunn, speaking like a true attorney. ". . . This is a case . . . involving the death of a man, a man that was shot and killed in the presence of his daughters. He was not armed. We have no concept as to why the deputy fired. He was not threatened. No crime had occurred. . . . No information has been given by the Orange County Sheriff's Department as to why this was justified in any way."