New details revealed Friday about a standoff that led to the fatal police shooting of a Santa Ana man in September show that he was unarmed and, according to a family member who spoke with police, suicidal at the time.
Brandon Lopez, 34, led police on a high speed pursuit Sept. 28 after the vehicle he was driving was reported stolen and officers discovered three warrants out for his arrest, including one for armed robberies, officials said.
The pursuit ended when Lopez’s car stalled in a construction zone near the 1200 block of West Santa Ana Boulevard.
Video footage released Friday, Nov. 12 revealed that at 6 p.m. a Santa Ana police officer said Lopez, who was still inside the vehicle, had a gun in his right hand, according to the critical incident briefing.
When Lopez emerged from the car after police fired gas into the vehicle to force Lopez out and end the hours-long standoff, footage showed he was holding a narrow, black object which officers believed to be a gun. Multiple officers yelled for him to put his hands up, before one officer yelled “Gun! Gun! Gun!”
They opened fire.
No firearm was recovered from Lopez or inside the vehicle, Sgt. Jacob Gallacher said in the briefing. The black object he was holding was a small Guess bag with an empty, crumpled water bottle inside.
The following Critical Incident Community Briefing video is related to a pursuit and officer-involved shooting that occurred on September 28, 2021. This incident is being investigated by Santa Ana PD, Anaheim PD and the California Department of Justice: https://t.co/G3o5Fckbj5
— Anaheim PD (@AnaheimPD) November 13, 2021
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During the standoff, officers noted they had seen Lopez reaching under his car seats with both hands, smoking an unknown substance with foil and a straw which they believed were narcotics, and at one point, lifted his floor mats to cover the windows of his car, police said in the briefing.
Police said they made repeated announcements to get Lopez out of the vehicle and “see if this guy is willin’ to give up now,” a SWAT supervisor said in one of the radio transmissions.
A relative of Lopez had informed police around 9:30 p.m., about a half hour before Lopez was shot, that “he wanted, uh, to suicide by cop,” according to a radio transmission from a Santa Ana police officer included with the footage.
Santa Ana City Councilman Johnathan Ryan Hernandez, Lopez’s cousin, has previously said Lopez dealt with mental health issues since he was a child and was suicidal. He called the shooting a murder.
A knife, note, cellphone and drug paraphernalia were found inside the vehicle.
The California Department of Justice will have an independent investigation of the shooting which is customary for officer-involved shootings of unarmed individuals under a new state law.
Source: Orange County Register
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