San Diego police on Wednesday released video footage of officers fatally shooting a barricaded suspect who ran toward them wielding a large knife following a standoff in a downtown apartment last month.
Read more How views on Trump’s handling of Iran have shifted, according to a new poll
Authorities said the man, 32-year-old Josue White, was experiencing a mental health crisis when he threatened his mother with a knife and a baseball bat at a building on Sixth Avenue about 1 p.m. June 23. She sustained minor injuries before fleeing her apartment and asking the building manager to call police.
White held police at bay for about two hours, hurling a television, microwave and other kitchen appliances out of a fourth-story window — injuring an officer and damaging two police vehicles — before setting the apartment on fire.
After officers entered the apartment, they broke open a bathroom door White was hiding behind. The footage shows White suddenly emerge, a knife in hand as he charged toward officers. Three officers immediately opened fire.
The roughly 8-minute video San Diego police released Wednesday comes from cameras that the uniformed officers wore during the standoff and encounter with White. It also includes drone footage and bits of the manager’s 911 call summoning police that day.
During the call, White’s mother got on the line and said her son, diagnosed with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, had barricaded himself and threatened to hurt himself and police who respond to the scene. Police arrived to find White barricaded in the apartment.
Read more The US and Iran trade missile barrages as hopes dim for a quick resolution
About an hour into the standoff, according to the video, officers saw heavy smoke coming from the apartment. They began evacuating the building and sent a police dog into the apartment to find White, but he was hiding behind a closed door. As smoke from the fire grew, police summoned firefighters.
Officers later flew a drone inside the apartment and landed it with its camera pointed toward the closed door that White was behind. The drone footage shows officers make their way into the apartment and bust open the closed door.
White quickly emerges, holding the knife, the drone footage shows. Police said White was “making stabbing motions” toward the officers when three of them opened fire. The officers were identified as Brandon Jordan, Matthew Steinbach and Shayan Esambolchi.
White was taken to a hospital, where he died.
The Sheriff’s Office is investigating the incident under a countywide agreement intended to keep law enforcement agencies from investigating their own agency’s shootings. The District Attorney’s Office will review the incident to determine if any officers should be held criminally liable, as is standard in all officer-involved shootings.
San Diego police will investigate to determine whether its policies and procedures were followed. The department will also conduct an administrative review of the incident.
Read more Malls, once symbols of American consumer culture, are splitting. Some are dying as others thrive
