SOUTH LOS ANGELES — An activist organization announced plans to launch a recall campaign against Los Angeles County District Attorney Jackie Lacey Jan. 25, one day after Lacey announced her office would not be filing charges against two Los Angeles police officers in the 2014 shooting death of a mentally challenged man.

“Lacey has betrayed the trust of our community and has essentially been useless in terms of protecting our citizens from police murder and abuse,” said Rev. K.W. Tulloss, the CEO of the Los Angeles chapter of the National Action Network, a group led by the Rev. Al Sharpton.

“Ezell Ford was killed while walking home minding his own business. Lacey continues to be a tool of white supremacy and works in partnership with police as they continue to kill and abuse African Americans and Latinos across the city, with no fear or concern about being criminally prosecuted by Lacey. This recall effort will not be easy. But Lacey must go,” Tulloss said.

Lacey, who was elected without opposition to a second term as district attorney last June, announced Jan. 24 that officers Sharlton Wampler and Antonio Villegas acted lawfully in self-defense and in defense of others when they shot Ford, 25, on Aug. 11, 2014.

District Attorney Jackie Lacey speaks with reporters Jan. 24 about her decision not to file charges against two Los Angeles police officers who shot and killed Ezell Ford, a mentally challenged black man, in South Los Angeles in August 2014. A group has announced its intention to begin a recall campaign against Lacey. (Photo by Tyrone Cole)

Her office issued a 28-page report that gave her reasons for not prosecuting the officers.

The officers, who were working a gang enforcement detail, saw Ford walking away from a known gang area. They approached him and said they wanted to talk to him, but Ford quickly walked away and ignored their request, the report stated.

The officers believed Ford was trying to discard an illegal substance at the time of the incident. To prevent him from doing so, Wampler placed his hands on Ford’s shoulders but Ford spun around, grabbed the officer by the waist and both men fell to the ground, the report said.

“The evidence indicates that Ford was on top of Wampler, struggling to obtain Wampler’s primary service weapon and posing an immediate threat to his safety and his partner’s safety,” the report continued. “In fear for their lives, Villegas and Wampler each responded with deadly force.”

According to the report, Ford’s DNA was found on Wampler’s holster, corroborating the officer’s account that Ford was trying to grab his service weapon. In addition, a witness told district attorney investigators that she heard an officer say, “Let go of the gun, let go of the gun!”

Bloodstains and scuffmarks on Wampler’s uniform as well as some of his injuries are consistent with this sequence of events, the report concluded.

According to the report Villegas shot Ford twice and Wampler, who is right-handed, pulled out his back-up weapon with his left hand, reached around Ford’s body and shot Ford once in the back.

“Our office has a daunting challenge each and every time there is an officer-involved shooting,” Lacey said in a statement. “In this case, we did everything we could to ensure a comprehensive investigation. Although the loss of Mr. Ford’s life is tragic, we believe the officers’ actions were legally justified and the evidence supports our decision.”

Ezell Ford’s mother, Tritobia Ford, likened the officers’ actions to murder, and said there “will be no justice” for her son.

“God is the ultimate judge and they will pay for what they did,” she said. “He never did nothing that would warrant him being murdered in the street like he was on the night of August 11, 2014. It was unwarranted. It was unjustified. And as I say, I believe God has the final say. They may have gotten by right now, but it’s not over. They will have their day.”

In addition to the National Action Network, other civil rights organizations have spoken out against Lacey’s ruling. Representatives from eight community groups have called on Lacey to excuse herself and her office for all controversial police shooting cases.

The Rev. K.W. Tulloss, center, head of the Los Angeles chapter of the National Action Network, announces plans to launch a recall campaign against District Attorney Jackie Lacey. At left is Earl Ofari Hutchinson, president of the Los Angeles Urban Policy Roundtable and at right is Najee Ali, head of Project Islamic Hope. (Courtesy photo)

“The refusal of Lacey to prosecute officers involved in the Ezell Ford case and other blatant cases of police misconduct points to the need for an independent special prosecutor with no ties to local law enforcement,” said Earl Ofari Hutchinson, president of the Los Angeles Urban Policy Roundtable.

Other organizations endorsing Hutchinson’s message include L.A. Black Employees for Fairness, the Black Ministerial Alliance and Cease Fire and Project Cry No More, two nonprofits dedicated to ending violence.

Prosecutors and investigators with the Justice System Integrity Division received the Los Angeles Police Department’s initial report on the Ford shooting May 11, 2015, and conducted a thorough and exhaustive review over the next 20 months, according to the report. They sought additional witnesses, intervened in a federal lawsuit to obtain new witness statements, reviewed DNA and other evidence and consulted with forensic experts.

Lacey and other law enforcement officials urged additional witnesses to come forward to authorities in late 2014. When no one did, prosecutors sought to secure confidential witness statements that were part of a federal lawsuit filed against the city of Los Angeles over the shooting.

In January 2016, the District Attorney’s Office filed a motion to intervene in the federal case. The motion was granted nearly five months later, giving the prosecutors access to more than 1,000 pages of deposition transcripts of nine individuals. They were reviewed as part of the analysis but cannot be made public due to a federal court protective order.

“Although there were obstacles along the way, obtaining these statements was crucial to frame the entire picture of what happened the night Mr. Ford was shot,” Lacey said.

The Los Angeles Police Commission ruled in June 2015, 10 months after the shooting, that Villegas and Wampler acted out of policy during the shooting.

The commission ruled that Villegas was wrong in his initial decision to draw his weapon early in the confrontation, but upheld his decision to fire at Ford to protect Wampler.

The civilian panel also ruled there was no reason to have detained Ford in the first place and that Wampler badly mishandled the encounter, leading to the fatal confrontation. It said its ruling was based on the “totality” of the circumstances, not just the moment when force was used.

In separate reports to the commission, Police Chief Charlie Beck and the police department’s independent watchdog, Inspector General Alex Bustamante, each concluded that the officers were justified in their actions, although Bustamante faulted the tactics used by one of the officers, believed to be Wampler, in approaching Ford in the first place.

The Ford family and the city of Los Angeles announced a tentative settlement in a wrongful death lawsuit last October. No terms of the settlement were released.

City News Service contributed to this report.