Police Killing of Armed Man Was Justified, D.A. Finds

Two San Diego police officers were justified in shooting to death a drugged and suicidal knife-wielding man who police said threatened the officers as he came down the steps of a mobile home trailer the night of July 21, the district attorney said.

Bruce Todd Riddle, 29, armed with the knife and overdosed on an anxiety treatment drug, posed a threat sufficient to allow officers Loretta Glick and Robert Walter to open fire when they were approached by Riddle in the South San Diego trailer park about 10 p.m.

“Riddle was armed with a knife, was talking and acting irrationally, and advanced on officers after having been ordered to drop the knife,” Dist. Atty. Edwin Miller said in a letter to Police Chief Robert Burgreen Monday. The two-page letter was released by police Tuesday.

It describes the shooting this way:

Glick and Walter were called to the Coronado Palms Trailer Park in the 2200 block of Coronado Avenue after a report of a potential suicide.

The officers found Riddle standing on the porch of a trailer, waving a hunting knife attached to his wrist, and saying, “Go ahead and shoot me, kill me,” Miller’s letter said.

While Glick pointed her handgun at Riddle, the letter says, Walter tried to persuade him to surrender. But Riddle, who was sitting on the steps of the trailer’s porch, asked Walter what he would do if he charged at him. Then Riddle started down the steps, and Glick fired one round, apparently striking Riddle in the left hand.

Riddle continued down the stairs, the letter said, and when he was 15 feet from the officers, Walter fired three shots, striking Riddle in the chest. He was pronounced dead about one hour later at UC San Diego Medical Center.

“Riddle repeatedly stated, ‘I want you to kill me,’ ” the district attorney’s letter said.

Riddle’s parents said he had just taken a bottle of prescription pills before the officers arrived, a dose which the chief of the county medical examiner’s laboratory later said was an “extraordinarily high level” and potentially fatal.

“High levels of this drug could be expected to produce anger, confusion and hostility, and disjointed, disoriented behavior,” the letter said.

Miller’s letter repeated police policy, saying deadly force is justified by officers “if a reasonable person under the same or similar circumstances would believe that such use was necessary to prevent death or grievous bodily injury to oneself or another.”

Police recruits are taught that if someone moves within 21 feet of them with an “edged weapon,” which could include a knife, screwdriver or other sharp instrument, they are allowed to respond with whatever force they feel is necessary.

Police in San Diego have fatally shot nine people and wounded 13 others this year.

Last week, Burgreen announced he will lead the departmental review of its shooting policies. Burgreen had assigned Deputy Chief Mike Rice to the job, but Rice voluntarily stepped down after his son, Officer Charles M. Rice Jr., shot and killed a stake-wielding man earlier in the week.