To Shoot or Not to Shoot? : Recent Killings by Law Enforcement Revive Old Questions

The recent shooting deaths of two men at the hands of county law enforcement agencies raise anew persistent questions about the use of deadly force in San Diego County and the circumstances that lead to officers’ decisions to open fire.

Although it is too early to criticize the officers’ conduct, we are compelled to ask: Are law enforcement officers using their weapons as carefully as possible?

Shock and outrage are the instinctive reactions to the shootings of 21-year-old Jeffrey Bray, in Vista on May 18, and 24-year-old Jose Eleazar Lopez Ballardo, on Interstate 5 near La Jolla on Monday.

Bray was shot in the head by reserve Deputy John S. Wickham as he backed his pickup truck into a patrol car. The Sheriff’s Department subsequently admitted that the two officers mistakenly tailed Bray to his apartment complex in the belief he had stolen the pickup. An anonymous witness has claimed that Bray was backing up to talk to him and never saw the deputies.

Lopez Ballardo was shot by San Diego Police Officer Thomas K. O’Connell after he reportedly swung a cement trowel at O’Connell. The officer had come to the aid of two California Highway Patrol officers who were attempting to remove the apparently confused Lopez Ballardo from the southbound lanes of the freeway.

We are reluctant to second-guess the split-second decisions that law enforcement officers must make on the street, especially now, before reviews by the police, the sheriff and Dist. Atty. Edwin Miller are completed.

In the Bray case, the county grand jury has been asked to investigate the slaying. We hope it will step back and conduct the kind of thorough probe it completed a year ago, when it examined 18 shootings involving the San Diego Police Department.

Specifically, the grand jury should look into the Sheriff’s Department’s “policies, procedures, training and supervision related to the use of firearms,” as it did in its review of the Police Department. In this case, an examination of the use of reserve officers and their training also seems warranted.

The Police Department received superb marks from the grand jury. “Senior leadership in the SDPD is dedicated to enforcement of excellent policies and directives pertaining to the use of firearms,” the grand jury wrote. “SDPD officers strive to carry out these policies and procedures.”

For starters, the current grand jury Friday recommended the establishment of a review board for the Sheriff’s Department, a suggestion we endorse if the panel is given the power to do the job correctly.

Police Department activities are already subject to scrutiny by two review panels. The Lopez Ballardo case seems ripe for their examination. Given the dead man’s strange behavior, perhaps the board that reviews police policies could look into whether officers are adequately trained to confront the large number of mentally ill people and drug users they face daily.

“No other human-service worker confronts the variety or volatility of problems at the heart of everyday police work,” James J. Fyfe, professor of justice at the American University in Washington and a 16-year veteran of the New York Police Department, wrote in The Times earlier this year.

“Yet the training in even the most sophisticated police departments is a fraction of that required of social workers, schoolteachers, psychologists or lawyers.”

In light of the recent shootings here, another look at that training seems in order.