Police Report Says Taschner Was Still a Threat When Shot at Point-Blank Range

Robert Gary Taschner was not handcuffed and was still a threat to police when he was shot at point-blank range by a sheriff’s deputy Dec. 5, ending a bloody confrontation that left one sheriff’s deputy dead and two other deputies wounded, according to a report by the Escondido Police Department.

The report was delivered Wednesday to the district attorney’s office, which will now undertake its own review into whether sheriff’s deputies were justified in using lethal force to subdue Taschner, 37, according to district attorney’s spokesman Steve Casey.

Taschner, a diagnosed schizophrenic who was high on methamphetamines, held a sheriff’s tactical weapons team at bay for 12 hours from inside his Escondido apartment. Taschner, a collector of weapons who had a small arsenal in his apartment during the long siege, was shot numerous times as he dashed outside, dressed in military camouflage garb and firing a Chinese-made assault rifle.

Just days before the shoot-out, Taschner had been arrested by Escondido police, who seized numerous weapons from his apartment. It was later revealed by news media that Taschner was picked up and released by a sheriff’s deputy after he confronted a schoolteacher at her rural home at 5 a.m. the same day the siege began.

Controversy arose when television news tapes showed that while Taschner was prone on the ground, held down by a sheriff’s deputy and a police dog, sheriff’s deputy Ronald Gonzalez fired a pistol from point-blank range at Taschner’s head.

Taschner’s mother, Sally Taschner, who was not at the scene, later accused sheriff’s deputies of having “executed” her son.

But the report by Escondido police says Gonzalez did not overreact, and that Taschner, even though he was on the ground, was still considered a threat to the deputies when he was shot one last time in the face.

“Contrary to what has been reported,” Lt. Mike Stein told the Escondido Times Advocate, “he was not shot while he was handcuffed. He was handcuffed after the shooting had stopped.”

Casey said Thursday he couldn’t estimate how long it will take the district attorney’s office to review the Escondido police report of the incident. The examination is being handled by Deputy Dist. Atty. Alan Preckel, who was unavailable for comment.

Also killed in the incident was deputy Lonny Brewer, 29, who was hit by a bullet that lodged in his chest during the first of two assaults against Taschner by the special tactical weapons team. Deputy Scott Rossall was wounded in the leg and deputy Chuck Wagner sustained a superficial finger wound in the melee.