MARTINEZ (BCN) — A jury determined today that a Concord man who was shot 12 times by police after leading authorities on a stolen car chase from Bay Point to Concord in November died at the hands of police and it was not an accident.

The Contra Costa County coroner’s office holds formal inquests any time somebody’s death is connected to law enforcement, whether it is an in-custody death, a “suicide by cop,” or an officer-involved shooting, said attorney Matthew Guichard, who was hired by the Contra Costa County Sheriff’s Office to conduct the hearing.

The inquests only determine the manner of death, not whether a shooting was justified.

The night of Nov. 12, 2014, Jose Avalos, 26, was blocked in on two sides by police vehicles in the parking lot of the Willows Shopping Center, Concord police Officer James Cartwright said.

Avalos had just led authorities on a police pursuit from Bay Point to Concord and had carjacked a vehicle, according to Concord police Detective Greg Pardella.

“You could see the fear in his face,” Cartwright said. “He looked at us, kind of through us, with big eyes.”

At that point, Avalos drove the car forward, over a concrete curb at the edge of an embankment, Cartwright said. He put the car into reverse and rammed it into a Martinez police vehicle.

Both Cartwright and Concord police Officer Kevin Halm said they saw Avalos reach down for something in the car when they opened fire.

“As his elbow broke the windowsill and I’m thinking he has a gun, I thought I better shoot first or he’s going to end up being able to shoot us and the officers back behind me, so that’s when I fired,” Halm said.

The pursuit began around 8:20 p.m. when Avalos, who was in the car with his then-girlfriend, according to his sister Diana Avalos, decided not to stop for a sheriff’s deputy who was trying to pull the car over, Pardella said.

Avalos was on probation for carrying a concealed weapon, Pardella said. In an interview with detectives, Pardella said Avalos’s girlfriend told investigators that Avalos turned to her and said, “I’m not stopping. I’m sorry. Put on your seatbelt.”

He then led the deputy west on state Highway 4 toward Concord, at one point driving the wrong way on state Highway 242, Pardella said.

Avalos and his girlfriend abandoned the car in the parking lot of the Sunvalley Shopping Center in Concord, where Pardella said investigators later found a gun.

Due to cameras that were inoperable, Pardella said there was no surveillance footage of Avalos dropping the gun, and his girlfriend never admitted to seeing it in his possession.

“She said that if he had a gun, it would have been for protection,” Pardella said.

Avalos ran out of the Sunvalley Shopping Center and somehow managed to cross Interstate Highway 680, where he ran into the Willows Shopping Center parking lot, according to Concord police officers.

After trying twice to carjack two cars, he finally succeeded on his third attempt, Pardella said. It wasn’t long until officers caught up to him.

Avalos’s family wept as they heard a forensic pathologist describe where the 12 bullets entered his body.

The father of a four-year-old boy, Avalos worked hard to provide for his family, even though he had run into trouble with the law before, said Rosa Nina Perez, the mother of the boy.

“Life is hard. We aren’t born with a manual,” Perez said. “He was in and out of jail but he loved his son and he always made a point of telling me to tell him how much he loved him.”

Even though he was committing a crime, Perez said Avalos never got a chance to live. She said the verdict today gave her hope that one day the officers would answer for Avalos’ death.

“It makes me feel like we have a case,” Perez said. “They had no right to take his life away.”