Officer Kills Man Waving Trowel in I-5 Confrontation

A young man who was running from police on Interstate 5 during Monday morning’s rush hour was shot and killed by a San Diego police officer after the man threatened two highway patrolmen with a trowel, authorities said.

The unidentified victim, believed to be a transient in his late 20s, was killed when Officer Thomas K. O’Connell fired about eight shots from his semiautomatic weapon. The man died at the scene of multiple gunshot wounds, falling to the pavement in the southbound lanes of I-5 near La Jolla.

The incident halted rush-hour traffic as some commuters watched, horrified, while three officers first attempted to subdue the man and then shot him. The man, whom some witnesses described as being dressed as a clown because of his bright red and green clothing, attempted to elude authorities, then turned and began waving an 18-inch cement trowel in the air.

Police said O’Connell shot the man only after repeated warnings to stop lunging at the officers. But some witnesses had a different view, and questioned why the group of officers could not peacefully arrest a seemingly deranged and confused man.

“Why not throw a net over the guy?” asked Stan Fleener of Encinitas, who was on his way to a doctor’s appointment when he was forced to stop to avoid hitting the man and the officers. “Or come up behind him? It just takes an ounce of guts to tackle the guy, especially when the cops have all the advantage.”

Another witness, Parker Pike, community relations director for the San Diego Union and Tribune, told the Tribune that “it seemed strange they couldn’t just tackle him.”

San Diego police said the man was threatening O’Connell when the officer fired.

Dave Cohen, a police spokesman, said the incident began shortly before 8 a.m. when Officer Joe Gutierrez, 49, a 23-year veteran of the California Highway Patrol, was driving north on I-5 near Ardath Road in La Jolla and spotted a man walking along the freeway.

Gutierrez stopped, told the man he could not walk on the freeway, and offered him a ride to another location. The man refused to enter the car and instead ran across the traffic into the southbound lanes.

Cohen said Gutierrez circled around and radioed for backup units, then he and fellow CHP Officer William Shipley, 30, a four-year veteran, confronted the man in the southbound lanes.

“The two highway patrol officers attempted to contact this individual,” Cohen said. “They tried to talk him out of the roadway.”

Cohen said the man swung the trowel at the officers, despite their repeated orders to drop the weapon and get out of the way of traffic.

There were conflicting reports about whether the man actually struck officers with the trowel. Cohen said the officers tried to move in and subdue him and that the man struck both officers with it.

However, Lt. Gary Learn of the police homicide unit and Jim Anderson, a Highway Patrol spokesman, said that only Gutierrez was hit, suffering minor cuts.

Fleener, the witness, said he never saw the man hit either officer.

Cohen said that when O’Connell arrived the policeman repeatedly yelled to the man to drop the trowel. Instead, the man moved away from the officer and toward some cars, pounding on the hood of one of them, Cohen said.

O’Connell was chasing him at a distance of about 6 to 10 feet, and “the man at one point lunged at the officer, the officer backed up, and the man kept coming, swinging the trowel wildly,” Cohen said.

O’Connell fired one burst from his 9-millimeter semiautomatic pistol, but the man kept coming, Cohen said. “The officer fired another burst and the person went down,” he said.

“He was advancing,” Learn said. “He had this metal instrument and had raised it up in a threatening manner.”

Cohen said about eight shell casings were found at the scene.

Fleener said O’Connell fired his gun when he was only 4 feet from the man, who “dropped to one knee, tried to get up, and then I saw him crumble.”

Fleener sharply questioned O’Connell’s need to use deadly force, particularly since the victim appeared to be a confused, deranged transient.

“There were three cops there,” he said. “All were bigger physically than this guy, who looked like a transient. He was dazed, with blood all over this face. He was crazy. But to end his life like this?”

Fleener said he never saw the man strike the two highway patrolmen. He said the patrolmen never unholstered their guns, but did raise their batons in an attempt to force the man to drop the trowel.

The man’s face was smeared with blood during the incident, and Fleener said it was unclear why he had a cut over his forehead. Fleener said the injury could have come from scuffling with the officers, or from being struck by oncoming traffic.

Fleener said that at one point the man dropped a bag of clothes and a plastic pail he was carrying, but never let go of the trowel.

“He was waving it in the air,” Fleener said. “But he wasn’t lunging at anyone or striking anyone.”

Deputy County Coroner Don Matticks described the victim as having a full head of brown hair, brown eyes and a brown mustache. He was dressed in layers, including a white shirt with gray stripes, a gray Windbreaker-type jacket, red sport coat and green vest. He also wore gray trousers and tan jogging shoes.

The blaze of colors in the man’s dress originally accounted for some confusion at the scene, and several witnesses reported that the man was wearing a clown outfit.

“Someone might say he looked like a clown because of the red coat and the green vest,” Matticks said. “But he was not in clown’s clothing.”