Officer Kills Man at Boardinghouse

A Ventura police officer shot and killed a man Tuesday night when authorities responded to a report of gunfire in a residential neighborhood near the Buenaventura Plaza, police said.

Authorities would not identify the man until officers had been interviewed about the shooting, Ventura Police Lt. Don Arth said.

At least 10 officers responded at 7:30 p.m. to a call of shots fired at a house in the 300 block of College Drive, about half a mile from Ventura College, Ventura Police Capt. Randy Adams said.

The shots came from a one-story, four-bedroom house owned by Beverly Sardella, where several boarders lived.

When police arrived, they were confronted by a man who appeared to be armed with a handgun, Arth said.

They declined to recount the sequence of events that led to the shooting or comment on whether the man fired at officers before he was shot.

Police also declined to release the name of the officer who shot the man.

After the shooting, two people in or near the house were taken to the Ventura Police Department for questioning, Arth said.

The two have not been arrested, but Arth said the investigation was continuing.

After the shooting, officers searched the house, trying to determine whether anyone remained inside. Four officers with their guns drawn moved to the front door while two other officers hid behind a tree, their weapons also drawn.

Sardella was vague about whether the victim lived in the house.

“I was in the house and one of these guys, he shot the shotgun off and all of the sudden there were officers here,” she said. “I don’t know if he’s dead or alive or what.”

Sardella said she takes in boarders and that their friends often visit.

After the incident, about 25 neighbors stood outside at the nearby intersection of College Drive and Maple Avenue.

Marika Leon, who has lived in the area for 25 years, said she was finishing dinner when the shooting occurred.

“I heard a gunshot and all of a sudden seven or eight police officers were here,” she said.

Leon said police officers had come to the house at all hours many times in the past. “There’s been a lot of unusual activity at that house in the last five years,” she said. “Unusual people coming in and out of the house and strange cars arriving late at night.”

Several neighbors also said a car that had been parked across the street from the house had been vandalized Monday night, with windows broken and tires slashed. In the morning, the car was parked in the driveway of Sardella’s house, they said.

Another neighbor who asked not to be identified said she believed that there were a couple of people in the house at the time of the shooting.

She said she was in her house when she heard a gunshot, looked out her window and saw a man lying in front of the nearby house.

“All of a sudden, there was just a gunshot,” she said. “It was really scary.”

Times staff writer Carol Watson contributed to this story.