Eyewitness Backs Police Over Killing of Neighbor

A teen-age eyewitness to the fatal police shooting of an Encanto man said Sunday the officers had little choice but to shoot the man in self-defense after he bit one of them, then threatened to hit them with an ax handle.

Margarito Lino, 32, died after San Diego Police Officer Jim Shark fired two bullets at him during the confrontation Saturday afternoon in the 500 block of 61st Street.

“He told the police officers to shoot him, kill him. He said, ‘Shoot me! Shoot me!’ Then he grabbed the bat and made a motion like you would to hit a baseball,” said Jacqueline Fletes, 13, who witnessed the shooting from a neighboring kitchen window in the apartment complex.

“They (officers) told him to drop it, to give up, and as he started to swing the bat, they shot him in the stomach,” she said. “He (Lino) was so close to them, he could have hit them if they didn’t shoot.”

Relieved of Field Duty

Police Department spokesman Bill Robinson said Shark was relieved of field duty pending a review by both the San Diego County district attorney’s office and Police Department administrators. That is routine for officers who are involved in shootings.

Jacqueline Fletes’ sister, Cynthia Fletes, 17, said most of the people who witnessed the shooting agreed that police had little choice but to shoot in self-defense.

“Some of the neighbors started a petition last night to protest the shooting, but only five people signed it out of about 20 who were asked,” the older Fletes said.

Lino was known to neighbors as Luis Gonzalez and had a reputation as a drinker who could be loud and obnoxious, disrupting the neighborhood all hours of the day and night with his partying, neighbors said Sunday.

Asked to Keep Quiet

The events leading to the shooting apparently began Friday night when Jose Gutierrez, 32, asked Lino to keep down the noise of a party so he could get a night’s rest.

“I said, ‘Could you please keep the noise down?’ and he told me to get the hell out of there and he punched me in the eye,” Gutierrez said.

“I hit him back. I was a professional fighter in Mexico and I messed up his face pretty good and I had him on the floor,” Gutierrez said. “I finally got off him and asked the neighbors to keep him cool.”

About 2 a.m. Saturday, Lino returned to Gutierrez’s home, breaking out windows in his car and kitchen, Gutierrez said. “And he made threats to us, like about how he was going to burn down our house with my family in it,” Gutierrez said. “We got him back to his place.”

Started Screaming Again

Later Saturday morning, “he started screaming at us again, and he said he was gathering men to beat me up. He said, ‘I’ll get you one way or another if it’s the last thing I do.’ And he started drinking some more.”

When Gutierrez got word from neighbors that Lino had armed himself with a gun and was headed for his home, Gutierrez’s wife, Guadalupe, called San Diego police. When they arrived, she pointed to Lino from down the block, identifying him for police.

It was at this point that, Jacqueline Fletes said, Lino, standing across the street from his apartment, realized he had been identified by the Gutierrezes and returned to his home.

“One of the officers grabbed him and threw him on the floor and a gun fell out of his shorts,” Jacqueline Fletes said. “One of the officers got one of his handcuffs on Luis’ hand but then he started fighting back and broke free and bit the officer on the shoulder.”

Ducked Inside House

Lino ducked inside the house and grabbed what Fletes described as a baseball bat that was used to break a pinata for a neighborhood birthday party earlier in the day. Police described the weapon as a pick-ax handle.

“He raised his arms like in a victory sign and told the police to shoot him, kill him,” the girl said. “He said, ‘Shoot me! Shoot me!’ ” Lino then made a motion toward the officers and Shark shot twice, according to Fletes and police accounts.

Lino, hit in his torso, limped back into the kitchen of his apartment, where he collapsed and died, according to police.