Bodycam footage shows man reaching for object that looked like gun before police shooting

By Teri Figueroa and Karen Kucher
The San Diego Union-Tribune

SAN DIEGO — San Diego police shot a suspect early Thursday afternoon after a police pursuit ended with a collision that toppled a light pole onto a police car in the La Presa neighborhood of Spring Valley , police said.

The man who was shot was taken to a hospital and was treated for serious but non-life-threatening injuries, according to sheriff’s Lt. Juan Marquez.

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An officer at the scene was injured by shattered glass when the light pole fell onto the police patrol vehicle, said San Diego police spokesperson Officer Colin Steinbroner.

In a highly unusual step, police released footage of the shooting just hours after it occurred, in hopes, they said, of clearing up concerns raised after bystander video was posted on social media.

The Sheriff’s Office is investigating the shooting under a countywide memorandum that prevents local agencies from investigating their own officer-involved shootings.

The incident started about 12:40 p.m. , when someone called to report their vehicle had been stolen in the vicinity of Euclid and Imperial avenues in southeastern San Diego, he said. Officers in the department’s new Real Time Operations Center entered the stolen vehicle’s information into the system so officers could look for it.

Less than an hour later, just before 1:30 p.m., police spotted the car, and a pursuit ensued, police said. During the pursuit, officers deployed spike strips to flatten the tires. The roughly 10-minute chase ended when the vehicle collided with a light pole in the vicinity of Jamacha Road and Gillespie Drive in La Presa, Steinbroner said.

On Instagram, police posted footage from a camera worn by one of the officers at the scene. The roughly 90-second clip shows the officer with his gun drawn as the suspect is on his knees in front of a white vehicle, his back to the officers and his hands out to the side.

The man is repeatedly ordered to get on the ground. Someone, presumably an officer, asks aloud if an item on the ground a few feet from the man was a gun. Another person, presumably another officer, says it is. Officers then order the suspect not to reach for the gun.

Police stop the video at this point and zoom in to highlight an object on the ground, then show a close-up of what looks like a gold gun with the text “object that appeared to be a firearm.”

The video starts again, and the man appears to suddenly move in the direction of the object. One officer opened fire, the department said on Instagram.

In the social media post, the department said it “has chosen to release a preliminary video of today’s incident and will release a more comprehensive critical incident video in the coming weeks.”

Under state law, policing agencies generally must release within 45 days video of an incident in which an officer opens fire, unless it will impede the investigation. San Diego police generally release the video within a week or two.

On Thursday, police posted the video in less than five hours after the incident. Police officials said they decided to quickly release some video to show the shooting from the officer’s angle after another video from a different angle was posted on social media.

“We just wanted to make sure the public had the angle from the officer that tells the full story,” said police spokesperson Cesar Jimenez.

One bystander video spreading on social media, including Facebook, shows the man at gunpoint, but the camera swings away briefly before the camera swings back to focus on the man just as two shots are fired. Commenters raised concerns that police opened fire on a man with his hands up.

Jimenez said the other video did not clearly show what appeared to be a weapon.

“There was a concern that people were saying the person was shot for no reason,” he said. “So in order to make sure that people knew a little bit moreabout what occurred, we released part of the video.”