Fatal Police Shooting Ruled Justified by D.A. : Law Enforcement: District attorney absolves police officer, who also shot and killed the man’s pit bull.

A San Diego police officer was legally justified in fatally shooting a man holding an 8-inch “shiny, silver baby pin” who had commanded his pit bull to attack moments before, the district attorney’s office ruled in a report released Friday.

Roberto Segovia, 34, was killed in June following three visits by officers to his San Ysidro home over two days. The day before Segovia was killed, one of his two sisters told police that her brother had been drinking heavily and hit her in the eye, lip, stomach and buttocks before fleeing with a steak knife.

When Officers Steven Riddle and Mark Gain were summoned a second time the same night, the sisters said, Segovia, even more drunk, had come back and cut the telephone wire after they admitted calling the police. Segovia was not home, and the officers advised the women to stay away from the house that night.

The following day, the officers received a third call to return to the house. The sisters told officers that they wanted a restraining order keeping Segovia from the house. This time, the officers saw Segovia with something shiny in his hand and assumed it was a knife.

The district attorney’s office gave the following description of the events moments before the shooting:

Segovia ran into the house and slammed the front door. Riddle, believing one of the sisters was inside, kicked open the door and heard a dog growling behind a closed door. According to police, Segovia yelled, “You’re not going to take me alive. You guys don’t have a search warrant. I’m not coming out. You’re going to have to kill me.”

After a few moments, the bedroom door swung open, and a black-and-white pit bull charged Riddle, running past him and losing its balance on the tile of the kitchen floor. The dog turned and charged again. Riddle saw Segovia leave the bedroom and step toward him. Riddle fired twice at the pit bull, killing it.

After firing the shots, Riddle saw Segovia come toward him with his right arm raised.

“Is he trying to get my gun?” Riddle recalled to investigators that he was thinking. “Does he got (sic) that knife in his hand, and is he mad because I shot his dog?”

When Segovia was 2 or 3 feet away with a silver object in his raised hand, Riddle fired once, hitting Segovia in the chest.

Riddle’s partner, Gain, came into the room and saw the safety pin. Segovia died a short time later.

District attorney’s investigators concluded that Riddle was justified in shooting because he knew Segovia was violent, may have had a knife, had been drinking and had resisted arrest in the past. Riddle also knew that the pit bull had bitten another police officer who had searched the house for drugs in the past.

“Considering all these factors, it was reasonable for Officer Riddle to use deadly force in self-defense as a reaction to the attack by Segovia’s pit bull, which was immediately followed by an attack by Segovia who was holding what the officer believed to be a knife,” Dist. Atty. Edwin Miller wrote.

In a second report released Friday, Miller’s office also ruled that a July shooting of a robbery suspect by a San Diego police officer was justified. The suspect, Rod Martin, was shot scaling a fence near where he had helped rob a grocery store, police said. Police Officer Danny Santiago said Martin paused, with his hands between his legs, and Santiago feared that Martin was about to pull a gun.

Martin, shot in the buttocks, fell back to the ground, hit Santiago’s wrist, and the gun went off again, striking Martin. Martin was not seriously injured. Miller’s office concluded that Santiago was justified because he feared for his safety.