San Diego

A police narcotics officer who shot and killed a man in East San Diego last December after police attempted to serve a search warrant was legally justified in doing so, the district attorney’s office determined Monday.

The shooting, which broke a 6-year-old record for lethal slayings by police in San Diego at the time, occurred when officers, armed with a search warrant and looking for drugs, decided to break down the front door of a house at which they had just purchased narcotics.

Once inside, they found two people in the front room and several more in the bedroom. Officers Donald Watkins and William Smith ordered a man known only as Hector, or Pancho, to get down on the floor, but he didn’t react, according to the report.

Smith grabbed Hector, but the man resisted, and Smith said he spotted a gun in the back of Hector’s pants. Smith and Watkins said the man reached for the gun, and Watkins shot him once in the chest, killing him.

A third officer, Manuel Rivera, said he yelled at to the man in Spanish to hit the floor.

Lisa Matteo, one of the woman in the front room, was quoted as telling investigators that Hector had a gun in the back of his pants and saw him grab the gun. She is also quoted as saying police warned Hector to get on the floor.

Hector was not identified. A friend said he was from Honduras. A deputy coroner found six pieces of rock cocaine and $469 on his body.

Last year, San Diego police shot 28 people, killing 12, the highest number since 1985.