Jillian Lauren, the bestselling author and wife of Weezer bassist Scott Shriner, has been granted more time to review the “voluminous” video showing the bizarre LAPD shooting that left her wounded in her own backyard. Officials say she fired first.
Lauren, 51, has pleaded not guilty to charges she willfully fired at several police officers who were shouting at her over a fence while searching for hit-and-run suspects allegedly attempting to hide in her neighbors’ backyards. No officers were hit, but several fired their own weapons at Lauren during the chaotic scene on April 8.
As Lauren stood in an L.A. courtroom Wednesday, her defense attorney, Georgina Wakefield, asked for a five-week delay before the court sets a key hearing expected to include the first live testimony in the controversial case.
The judge was initially dubious. “It sounds like a relatively straightforward case. Why do you need so much time?” Los Angeles County Judge Susan J. DeWitt asked from the bench.
“We’re still working our way through the voluminous discovery,” Wakefield said. “It’s a lot of video camera footage. It’s taking a long time to review. We’re also evaluating potential motions we intend to file.”
The judge asked Lauren if she agreed to the postponement. “Yes, your honor,” Lauren responded. The judge then set a follow-up hearing for July 22 and told Lauren she had the right to a probable cause hearing within 30 days of that date. Lauren and Wakefield declined to comment as they left the courthouse.
According to the LAPD, Lauren racked her gun and fired it during the alleged standoff with officers who were on the other side of a fence, searching for the hit-and-run suspects. Body-worn camera and home-surveillance video released by the LAPD on YouTube showed the minutes leading up to the alleged exchange of gunfire.
In the nearly 22-minute compilation, multiple officers are heard repeatedly yelling at a woman, instructing her to drop her gun. The woman is not seen or heard in the video recorded by the officers. The fence was too high for the height of the body-worn cameras, and the scene appeared hectic, with the loud drone of a police helicopter overhead. Toward the end of the exchange, one officer identifies himself as “police” while another shouts that he’s with the California Highway Patrol. It’s not clear if the officers’ uniforms could be seen over the fence.
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A separate video from Lauren’s home-surveillance system, also released by the LAPD, gave a different perspective. It shows Lauren exiting her house holding a black handgun and walking around the perimeter, looking around. The video appears to show Lauren manipulating and firing the gun, but it’s recorded from a distance and has no sound. After what appears to be a slight recoil, Lauren walks away, looking relatively calm.
According to the police body-worn footage, as soon as an officer warned, “Oh, she racked it,” police opened fire, unloading a barrage of ear-splitting shots. In her home-surveillance video, Lauren does not appear to react to multiple shots or exhibit any injury in the seconds after she allegedly fired.
About an hour after the shooting, Lauren exited her home and was arrested without incident. She was taken to a hospital for treatment of a gunshot wound on her arm. She was later booked in absentia on suspicion of attempted murder and released on $1 million bail. Prosecutors ultimately charged her with firing a gun with gross negligence and assault with a semiautomatic firearm.
In a 911 call also released by police, someone inside Lauren’s home can be heard telling an operator that Lauren was apparently shot by one of the suspects of the manhunt. Lauren is heard talking in the background, explaining what happened.
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“I had my gun, and he said, ‘Put down that gun. Put down that gun.’ I said, ‘Put down your fucking gun.’ And then he shot me,” Lauren says in the call released by the LAPD. “There are three men out at the other side of this fence here.”
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According to police, investigators recovered a 9mm Glock handgun and a spent shell casing from Lauren’s residence.
Lauren and Shriner have not commented publicly on the incident. Lauren released her first memoir, Some Girls: My Life in a Harem, in 2010, and her second, Everything You Ever Wanted, in May 2015. Both books are New York Times bestsellers. A few days after the incident, Shriner performed with Weezer at Coachella.
