TUSTIN : Man Shot by Officer Had Pulled Toy Gun

The district attorney’s office issued a report this week confirming that a man shot by a Tustin police officer in March was holding a toy gun.

The report concluded that there was no wrongdoing on the part of Tustin Officer Robert LaBarge, who fired three shots at 40-year-old Gilberto Murrieta, hitting him once in the shoulder.

A review of police reports, crime lab reports, medical records and other information showed “no evidence of criminal culpability on the part of Officer LaBarge,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Jim Tanizaki wrote in a letter to Tustin Police Chief W. Douglas Franks.

The shooting occurred on the morning of March 19, when LaBarge and Officer Dwayne Havour responded to a complaint of a violent domestic dispute. En route, they were advised that Murrieta had a knife.

When they confronted Murrieta in the foyer area of the Mei Ling Apartments on Tustin Village Way, he pulled what appeared to be a gun from his waistband, Police Capt. Steve Foster said.

At the time, neither the Police Department nor the district attorney’s office would confirm reports that the gun was a toy because they said the matter was still under investigation.

Tustin Police Capt. Steve Foster said Thursday that the gun closely resembled a snub-nosed .38-caliber revolver.

“When you’re looking down the business end of it, it looked very much like a regular handgun,” Foster said.