Drug-Bust Slaying Sets City Police Record

A police narcotics officer serving a search warrant Wednesday afternoon in East San Diego shot and killed a man who allegedly reached for a gun.

The fatal shooting is the 11th this year by San Diego police, breaking a 6-year-old record for slayings in a year.

It was also the 25th police shooting of the year. According to police records, last year’s total of 24 was the highest number of shootings since 1985.

Police said an undercover narcotics officer made a cocaine buy at an apartment in the 4100 block of Van Dyke Avenue. He returned with other officers about 2 p.m. to serve a search warrant, and they identified themselves as police officers. When nobody responded, the officers broke down the door with a battering ram, police said.

Once inside, they found four men and two women. One of the men pulled out a .22-caliber handgun, police say, and they shot him once in the chest. He was pronounced dead at Mercy Hospital a short time later.

Homicide officers investigating the shooting did not identify the dead man or the officers, and did not say if anyone was arrested.

They said the victim had $400 in cash and rock cocaine on him. Narcotics officers at the scene found rock cocaine, a .22-caliber revolver and an undisclosed amount of cash in the apartment, they said.

Wednesday’s shooting will follow the normal course of investigation in officer-involved shootings: reviews by homicide detectives, the department’s internal affairs unit, a special police board of commanders, the San Diego city manager and the district attorney’s office.

Police spokesman Bill Robinson said Wednesday night that the high number of shootings is hardly surprising.

“It’s reflective of the times,” he said. “There’s more narcotics and more firepower on the street. It’s a very deadly year, but this is a nationwide trend. Every major city has experienced an increase in violence.”

Robinson said narcotics officers serving search warrants are especially vulnerable because of the weapons drug dealers carry. He said a member of the narcotics team was recently shot in the hand while serving a warrant.

The shooting is bound to focus new attention on the use of deadly force, already the subject of an extensive internal department study that began in August.

Some of the fatal shootings have been particularly controversial because the victims had no guns. In two cases, the victims carried baseball bats. In another, a garden trowel.

In those particular cases, civic activists and others questioned the officers’ need to fire their guns and suggested that the victims could have been subdued in some other way.

The district attorney’s office has not filed criminal charges against an officer in six years, although it has reviewed dozens of police shootings during that time.

Escondido Police Officer David DeLange was charged in 1984 with killing a 22-year-old office secretary who was taken hostage and shot to death while fleeing her abductor. DeLange was acquitted.

The study of fatal shootings, initiated by Police Chief Bob Burgreen after a series of four over three months beginning in June, is supposed to be completed before Christmas.

Burgreen had to take over the study in September when one of his deputy chiefs asked to step aside. Deputy Chief Mike Rice said he could no longer be part of the group after his son, Charles, a police officer, shot and killed a man who police said had threatened him with a stick.

Since taking over the study, Burgreen has held seven community forums on the shootings, most of which have been poorly attended. He said he has personally met with more than 300 police officers to seek their opinions, and department representatives have visited 15 law enforcement agencies, including the FBI’s Virginia headquarters, the Phoenix and Kansas City police departments, and the Los Angeles police and sheriff’s departments.

A citizens police review board is examining all officer-involved shootings and will make its findings known to the police chief and city manager.

In an interview with The Times last month, Burgreen said he was looking at new equipment for the department and more extensive training for both rookie and veteran officers.

Burgreen said that, although the changes will not be earth-shattering, he believes they will have a great impact on the department.