Officer’s Wife Was Shot in Back of the Head

San Diego Police Officer Pablo J. Agrio shot his wife in the back of the head as he attempted to pull a gun out from behind her and the weapon discharged, according to two independent police sources.

In separate interviews Saturday, the sources, who did not want to be identified, said Agrio and his wife, Alma Catalina Agrio, began fighting after she returned to their Paradise Hills home the night of March 26.

During the fight, the sources said, Pablo Agrio realized his wife was holding a gun as she knelt on the floor so he ran up behind her, grabbed her hands and attempted to pull the firearm up over her head.

During that struggle, the gun discharged, striking the 24-year-old woman at close range in the back of the head, the sources said.

Exactly how the fatal shot was fired has been at the center of discussions about the case at police headquarters.

Many policemen were surprised when Agrio, 29, was charged with murder Wednesday because it was their belief that the shooting could only have occurred accidentally to such an officer as Agrio. They have pointed to his work with the department’s Drug Abuse Resistance Education program and the fact that he attended law school and had made plans to take the sergeant’s test.

But sources said that the district attorney’s office is likely to advise San Diego Municipal Judge Linda Quinn at a Monday bail review hearing that the fatal wound was to the back of the head, thus casting doubts on the accidental theory.

At headquarters last week, many rank-and-file officers expressed shock over the shooting, describing Pablo Agrio as a competent, well-liked police officer who had done well in his four years in the department.

Several police officers have visited him in jail, where he is being held on $100,000 bail. And some officers also have been asked to testify at the bail review hearing, when Agrio is scheduled to ask a judge to be freed on his own recognizance.

George Varela, an aide in the police chief’s office, said Friday that he and other officers have been contacted by defense attorneys, asking them to appear in court Monday on Agrio’s behalf. He said he and the other officers are weighing that request, and that if they do appear, they will do so only on an off-duty status.