Body-worn camera footage released Friday by San Diego police shows five officers and a sergeant fatally shoot a man allegedly armed with a BB gun in the Stockton neighborhood earlier this month.
Kevin García Gonzalez, 20, had been holed up in a parked sedan when he was shot April 4 around 11 a.m. Authorities initially said officers found a black handgun inside the car, but investigators later came to learn it was a BB gun.
The county Sheriff’s Office is handling the investigation under a reciprocal agreement with San Diego police, so neither department investigates its own officers or deputies.
The officers involved were identified as Michael Hagen, Diego Arellanes, Ruben Berton and Fernando Fernandez, who have been on the department for five to eight years. Sgt. Edward Laurendeau, a 17-year veteran, and Acting Sgt. Zane Sisneros, a 10-year veteran, also fired their weapons.
Investigators said the shooting occurred after a victim reported to a San Diego police sergeant that a man in a Ford Focus had brandished a firearm at him while parked on K Street near 31st Street around 9:50 a.m.
Security footage at Beth AME church shows a man, later identified as García, leaning on his car on the street next to the church. As a car es, he seems to follow the vehicle and show the car something tucked into his waistband.
The video then shows the sergeant approach García in a police SUV. The sergeant exits his SUV and pulls out his gun.
García, who was sitting in his car at the time, ignores the sergeant’s commands to show him his hands, text in the video reads. The woman, who was with García at the time and standing outside the car, listens to the commands and surrenders to officers.
Additional officers then arrive at the scene, the video shows.
Hagen is one of the first officers to arrive at the scene. He exits his car, draws his firearm and begins speaking to García in Spanish. Text in the video says García would switch between showing and concealing both his hands.
“We believe you have a gun! Hands up,” Hagen repeatedly yells out to García in English and Spanish. “Don’t put your hands up inside the car … Do you understand me?”
Text in the video says officers negotiated with García for 40 minutes. Spanish-speaking officers reported that he was saying he didn’t want to go back to jail and they’d have to kill him.
“He’s saying he doesn’t want to go to jail,” Arellanes interprets for another officer. “He’s saying his daughter is going to be born in a month. He wants to see his daughter be born. And if he comes out, he’s going to go to jail.”
Text in the video says officers decided to shoot pepperballs into the car to incapacitate García. From cover behind their own vehicle, an officer fires the pepperballs into the open window of the car.
As the balls enter the car, investigators say García raised a handgun. The body-worn camera footage from multiple officers shows García raise his hand with what appears to be something similar to a handgun.
The five officers and the sergeant then open fire. García is struck multiple times while sitting inside the car.
Text in the video says officers removed García from the car and istered first aid before paramedics arrived. The video shows an image of a replica revolver, later determined to be a BB gun, covered in blood. Investigators said the gun was removed from the car.
Following the shooting, García was determined to be a resident of San Diego, originally from Oaxaca, Mexico. Mexican authorities have demanded a thorough investigation into the shooting, and his family held signs during a vigil earlier this month that read “Hands Up! Don’t Shoot!” and “Justice for Kevin.”
After the Sheriff’s Office completes its investigation, the District Attorney’s Office will review it — as it does all shootings involving law enforcement — to determine whether the deputies bear any criminal liability.
