FBI has been investigating John Paul Quintero shooting ‘for several months,’ family told

The FBI has been investigating the January shooting death of John Paul Quintero by Wichita police “for several months now,” a bureau representative said Wednesday.

A group of people led by Quintero’s father and representatives from Sunflower Community Action presented a nearly 3,000-page petition to the local offices of the FBI on Wednesday calling for a federal investigation into the shooting. They were told the bureau is already working on its investigation.

Bridget Patton, an FBI spokeswoman based in Kansas City, Mo., said she had no timeline on the investigation, which is trying to determine whether there was a civil rights violation.

“We’ll take as long as it takes to investigate it thoroughly,” she said.

D’Juan Wash, communications director for Sunflower Community Action, said the organization is pleased with the bureau’s public announcement of its investigation.

“We didn’t have any confidence (the local) investigation was going to be thoroughly investigated,” Wash said. “Hopefully, justice will prevail because this investigation will be independent of the Wichita Police Department and the KBI.”

Attorneys representing the Quintero family sent a letter to the city of Wichita in August seeking $10 million in damages, or else they plan to file a lawsuit. The city confirmed on Tuesday it had received the notice of claim but would not comment on what its response will be.

Quintero died after being shot by a Wichita police officer on Jan. 3. Police and family accounts differ on what happened that night, and the family has publicly protested against a perceived lack of transparency.

Police accounts have said Quintero was belligerent and reaching for his waistband when he was shot twice by the officer, whose name has not been released. Thomas Bowers, one of two Dallas-based attorneys hired by the family, has said witnesses saw Quintero with his hands up and his back to officers when he was shot.

Patton, the FBI spokeswoman, said that as far as she knows, this is the only pending federal investigation into a potential civil rights violation by the Wichita Police Department.

This story was originally published September 2, 2015 at 5:20 PM with the headline "FBI has been investigating John Paul Quintero shooting ‘for several months,’ family told."