‘It was complete chaos’: Burbank police sergeant recalls 2010 shooting during suspect’s trial
In this July 2010 file photo, a Burbank police officer stands over a gun outside the Kmart where an officer was shot by a handcuffed shoplifting suspect.
Within moments, the routine shoplifting call turned into chaos.
On a Friday before the Fourth of July holiday weekend six years ago, Burbank Police Sgt. Derek Green, a patrol officer at the time, responded to the Kmart store in Burbank, where loss-prevention officers had detained a man suspected of stealing.
Green choked up in front of a jury in a Pasadena courtroom this week when describing the harrowing moments before and after getting shot by the handcuffed man who’d grabbed his partner’s gun.
“It was complete chaos,” Green testified on Wednesday. “It’s something you train for, something you prepare for, something you think about, but when it actually happens, it’s beyond comprehension.”
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Jamie Warren Willard, whose trial began this week, faces up to life in state prison if convicted of the charges, which include two counts of attempted murder of a peace officer, two counts of assault on a peace officer with a semiautomatic firearm, one count of second-degree commercial burglary, one count of assault with a deadly weapon and one count of battery.
Willard’s public defender Mark Carrillo said outside of court Wednesday that his client denied the charges, but did not elaborate further.
While detained on that hot July day, Willard went from being calm and cooperative to acting boisterous and uncooperative, Green testified. At one point, Willard started to cry. He told police he couldn’t go to jail.
After double-cuffing Willard’s hands and walking him out of the store with his partner, Alex Gutierrez, Green opened his patrol car door to set his belongings on the passenger seat and turn on the ignition to run the air conditioner.
From there, he noticed a verbal exchange that turned physical.
That’s when he heard his partner yell.
“He has my gun! He has my gun!”
When he saw his partner’s pistol in Willard’s hand, Green drew his own and approached, pointing his gun at Willard.
He shouted for help on his radio while trying to get a clear shot, which was difficult because his partner and Willard were entangled.
During the scuffle, Willard managed to point the gun at Green.
With 5 feet between them, the pair made eye contact before Green saw a muzzle flash and smoke, and immediately felt a sensation — not pain — in his left hand.
The radio he’d been holding was gone, along with the watch that had been strapped to his wrist.
Wounded, he returned fire toward Willard, firing eight rounds toward the man’s lower extremities so he wouldn’t hit his partner.
That’s when he saw the gun Willard was holding fly through the air. He rushed to the radio in his patrol car and put out a broadcast, 29 minutes after arriving at the store: “Shots fired, officer down at K-Mart.”
Within a couple of seconds, another unit arrived on scene.
Green subsequently underwent four surgeries to reconstruct his hand.
Trial testimony is slated to continue next week.
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Alene Tchekmedyian, alene.tchekmedyian@latimes.com
Twitter: @atchek
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