Los Angeles Times | April 24, 2023

HANFORD, Calif.  —  On a chilly Monday morning in March 2020, Christy Camara drove to pick up her 10-year-old son for school.

Wyland — a quiet boy with big brown eyes and a wry sense of humor beyond his years — was staying at his grandparents’ house, where his father lived after the divorce.

As Camara neared, police officers blocked her. Yellow crime scene tape surrounded the stucco house.

In this small Central Valley city — where Camara and her ex-husband went to the same elementary school their son attended — the faces were familiar: The fireman Camara went to high school with. The officer who was friends with her father.

No one would look her in the eye.

Her ex-husband, Victor Gomes, had shot Wyland in the head before killing himself.

He used a Glock pistol he bought from a nearby gun store when he was supposed to have been under a restraining order that prohibited him from buying a firearm.

As she struggled with paralyzing grief, Camara fixated on one question: How could Gomes have bought the gun?

Alioto represents Christy Camara Gomes, whose 10 year-old son Wyland was shot and killed by his own father, Victor Gomes. When Gomes applied to buy the gun he later used in the murder-suicide, he was under an active California restraining order prohibiting him from purchasing firearms. Notwithstanding the restraining order, the Department of Justice approved his background check, allowing Gomes to buy a gun he should never have been permitted to acquire.

Since 2021, Alioto has been tirelessly pursuing the Department of Justice, the State of California, and the Superior Court of Kings County to discover how and why the State allowed a man to arm himself while he was under an active court order preventing him from buying guns. Alioto has sued the Department of Justice for refusing to provide records that would explain the government’s error. (Christy Camara Gomes v. Dep’t of Justice (S.F. Superior Court), case no. 22-CPF-517886 [access the case by inputting the case number into “Civil Case Query” here].) Alioto has also sued the Superior Court of Kings County, the State of California, and the Department of Justice for Wyland’s wrongful death. (Christy Camara Gomes v. State of California, et al. (Kings Co. Superior Court), case no. 23CU0424 [access case records here].) Together, Alioto and Christy seek to hold the government accountable and ensure the errors that led to Wyland’s tragic death are never repeated.