19-Year-Old Fatally Shot by Police : San Fernando: The victim had threatened his family and officers with a kitchen knife, authorities say.

Police shot and killed a 19-year-old man early Saturday when the man threatened both his family and the officers with a knife, authorities said.

Jaime Balderrama was agitated and upset when he returned home about 1 a.m. following an evening out with friends, said his father, Clemente Balderrama. The young man grabbed a kitchen knife, his father said, and waved it at his parents and brother.

The family was unable to calm him, the elder Balderrama said, and called San Fernando police.

Authorities said that when they got to the family’s home in the 800 block of Griswold Avenue about 1:30 a.m. and ordered the young man to drop the knife, he lunged at them.

“They tried to help us with him,” Balderrama said. “And he went against them, and they shot him.”

One of the four officers at the scene fired at least six shots, striking the young man an unknown number of times, said San Fernando Police Lt. Dan Peavy.

“After he was shot, he began stabbing himself in the upper body,” Peavy said. “He was still struggling, but the officers were trying to get in and (handcuff) him and trying to get him some medical attention . . . trying to get him under control.”

The young man was pronounced dead at 2:32 a.m. by doctors at Holy Cross Medical Center in Mission Hills, authorities said.

The father said Saturday that he was still trying to sort out what had happened. As far as he knew, he said, his son was in good spirits, holding down a part-time job as a grocery-store bagger while attending a local college.

But earlier in the week, Clemente Balderrama said, his son had been detained by police for driving with an open alcohol container and for not having his driver’s license with him.

Although not serious offenses, Balderrama said, the incidents were troubling his son. While in police custody, Jaime Balderrama had missed a final exam, he said.

“I tried to control him,” the elder Balderrama said, discussing the knife incident. “I tried to talk to him. Whatever happened, I told him, we will try to fix it, just put the knife down. And he said, ‘No, no, no, I want to kill myself.’ ”

Before last December, when San Fernando police shot and killed a machete-wielding man after he struck an officer, there had not been an officer-involved shooting in that community in more than 10 years, Peavy said.

Peavy said the officer who shot Balderrama is 32 years old and has been with the department for more than seven years. The officer, whose name was not released, has never before been involved in a shooting.