Officer’s Shooting of Armed Woman Found Justifiable by D.A.’s Office

A San Diego police officer was justified in wounding a woman while she was in her house and armed with a shotgun, the district attorney’s office said Wednesday.

The officer who shot the woman, Anthony D. Castellini, was one of four officers who responded to a call Nov. 23 that a woman, Judy Hunt Ellis, had been beaten up by her ex-boyfriend and was threatening to shoot him, according to a report issued by Deputy District Atty. Michael R. Pent.

When the officers arrived about 7 p.m., a witness identified Ellis as she was entering her home in the 3900 block of 31st Street in North Park. Two officers went to the front door and one of them, Edmund L. Palumbo, spoke to Ellis through a screen door, trying to persuade her to come out.

Meanwhile, Castellini and another officer watched Ellis through partially open blinds. According to the report, Castellini told investigators that he saw Ellis sitting on a chair in the living room. Leaning against the chair was a double-barrel, 20-gauge shotgun.

Palumbo told investigators that Ellis was crying and sounded very distressed. For several minutes Palumbo talked to Ellis, while she alternated between going to the front door and slamming it and returning to where the shotgun was.

Finally, Ellis picked up the shotgun and started walking toward the front door. Palumbo saw her through a glass porthole in the door and yelled: “She’s going for the gun!”

Castellini said he yelled at her to drop the gun and then “fired his 9-millimeter pistol eight times in rapid succession through the window.” Ellis was hit once in the buttocks and once in the right hip. A bullet lodged in her pelvis.

Castellini told investigators that he fired because “I felt she (Ellis) was very unstable . . . . She didn’t listen to our instructions that she was not to pick the gun . . . . I thought she was going to fire at the door . . . . I have some experience with shotguns and if she would have fired through the door, the window, or the wall, she would have possibly shot one of the officers or myself. That is one of the main reasons why I shot. I think she was definitely a threat. I shot to eliminate that threat.”

According to the report, Castellini’s actions were justified because “when Ellis picked up (the) shotgun and began to turn in the direction of the front door and Officer Palumbo she posed a very real and immediate threat to all the officers at the scene.”

Ellis’ ex-boyfriend, Robert A. O’Donnell, later told police that he had broken into her home earlier that night and had found her hiding in a closet. The two fought, and he hit her nose with his elbow.

Ellis told investigators she knew police were outside and that she was upset and scared. She said she picked up the shotgun to take it to her bedroom and was not trying to shoot the officer.

The report states that the shotgun was discharged once, but investigators could not determine if the discharge was “intentional, accidental, or reflexive.”

Also in 1989, Castellini shot and wounded a man while answering a domestic violence call, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Craig Rooten. In that incident, Nels S. Peterson was shot in the right shoulder at a house in the 4400 block of Greene Street after pointing a 12-gauge shotgun at the officer. The report issued in August also declared that shooting to be justified.