Homeless Man Killed by Police Was Unarmed

The 38-year-old man fatally shot by an Oxnard police officer was unarmed when he was struck by four of seven rounds fired at him after a brief car chase, authorities said Wednesday.

The victim, James Kevin Graham, was described by his brother Wednesday as an emotionally disturbed homeless person who “was basically on the gentle side.”

“My brother was no model citizen,” said Joe Graham, 39, of Camarillo, an attorney. “But it’s hard for me to justify in my own mind the shooting with the little bit of information I have. I’m confused.”

He said that he received several calls on Wednesday from people who knew his brother. “They expressed outrage over the shooting,” he said. “He was well-liked.”

Joe Graham said his brother had been a good student at Hueneme High School in Oxnard, where he graduated in 1972.

As a strapping youth on the wrestling team, his brother “could press close to 400 pounds.” At his death, James Graham stood 6 feet, 2 inches tall and weighed 235 pounds, according to the coroner.

There were three brothers and three sisters in the family, and their father was a chief petty officer in the U.S. Navy, Joe Graham said. Their parents eventually divorced.

Ultimately, Graham said, his brother married and became a journeyman meat cutter in the Oxnard area. But the marriage, he said, ended in a traumatic divorce. James’ ex-wife and 11-year-old daughter now live in Alaska, he said.

Compounding his brother’s problems, Joe Graham said, was his being hit on the head with a beer bottle during a fight five years ago at Snooky’s, an Oxnard bar where he worked at the time.

From there, it was downhill.

“In 1987, he took to the streets,” he said.

At about that time, he said, county health professionals diagnosed James Graham as having mental health problems. Police said he had been arrested on narcotics violations, which further complicated his life.

Jerry Roberg, executive director of the Ventura County Rescue Mission in Oxnard, said James Graham stayed at the facility a few days each month in recent years.

James Graham was shot dead Monday night following a car chase in a residential Oxnard neighborhood.

Cornered in a cul-de-sac on Tulsa Drive, Graham crashed head-on into one of two police cars chasing him, police said. Officer Jim O’Brien fired seven rounds from his 9-mm handgun at Graham, who died in his car’s driver’s seat.

Oxnard Police Lt. Tom Cady confirmed Wednesday that Graham was not armed.

County Coroner Warren Lovell said that an autopsy performed Wednesday morning showed that he had been hit four times in the upper torso.

Three of the bullets hit Graham in the upper left side of his body, Lovell said, with a fatal round piercing his heart. A fourth bullet, he said, apparently penetrated the driver side door and lodged in Graham’s upper left leg.

Lovell said he could not estimate how close O’Brien was to Graham’s recently purchased 1978 Oldsmobile when he opened fire. “I have no idea as of the range,” he said.

The chase occurred after police were called by residents to investigate Graham’s erratic actions in front of a Tulsa Drive home. When two police cars arrived, Graham jumped into his car and raced away, sideswiping a patrol car in the process, police said.

A brief chase ensued, and Graham was cornered in the cul-de-sac, where he made a U-turn and hit a patrol car driven by Officer Martin Ennis, police said.

“There were no sirens,” said a woman who lives nearby and requested anonymity.

O’Brien, 33, an eight-year veteran of Oxnard’s police force, has been placed on administrative leave.

Both the county prosecutor’s office and Oxnard police are investigating the shooting.

The investigation “will take a while,” said Ventura County Dist. Atty. Michael D. Bradbury.

The decision whether to prosecute the officer for the shooting, he said, “certainly has a priority over much of the other work of this office. It’s a heavy burden for an officer to continue under these kinds of circumstances until there’s a final decision.”

Oxnard’s new police chief, Harold Hurtt, said he could not comment on whether excessive force was used because the investigation had just begun.

“I am definitely concerned any time there is a use-of-force incident,” he said. Such incidents, he said, can become “the greatest source of conflict” between police and the community.