Police Say Killing of Mental Patient by Officer Justified : Shooting: Ventura patrolman was forced to fire when escapee from medical center advanced with a club, according to a department spokesman.

The Ventura police officer who fatally wounded a club-wielding mental patient had no choice but to use deadly force to protect himself, a police spokesman said Monday.

Patrolman Brian Hewlett apparently acted within department policy when he shot Ernesto Vargas Garcia of Santa Paula on Sunday as the man--who was carrying a suicide note--moved toward him with a raised three-foot-long board, Lt. Pat Miller said.

“From the preliminary information we have, it appears that [Hewlett] did nothing out of policy,” Miller said, basing his conclusion on witness interviews. “Essentially, he got to a point where he could not back away anymore. The guy was coming at him faster than he could get away.” However, Miller revealed that if Garcia, who had just fled the county medical center in central Ventura, had waited one minute before charging the officer, he might still be alive.

A sergeant armed with a shotgun that discharges 1 1/2-ounce canvas bags of pellets to disable unruly suspects arrived at the Foothill Road scene just after Hewlett shot Garcia once in the chest at 12:35 p.m.

“He got there a couple of minutes late,” Miller said.

Hewlett could not wait for the shotgun because Garcia, whose 29th birthday would have been Monday, suddenly took two long steps forward, coming within about six feet of the officer, Miller said. The officer had been trying to calm Garcia for about eight minutes.

“He yelled, ‘Shoot me, shoot me,’ ” Miller said witnesses quoted Garcia as saying. “ ‘What do I have to do to get you to shoot me?’ ”

Garcia’s death represents the second fatal shooting by Ventura police in the last month. James Anthony Zendejas, 21, was shot after he allegedly threatened three Ventura Avenue residents with a cigarette lighter that looked like a handgun.

“I think they’re just two isolated incidents that happen sometimes,” Miller said.

Department policy allows officers to use deadly force when they fear for their lives or the lives of others. Hewlett, backing up toward the side of Foothill Road as Garcia moved to the center stripe, thought he had no choice but to fire, the lieutenant said.

Hewlett shot Garcia in the chest instead of wounding him in the arm or leg because officers are trained to “shoot to stop. You’re shooting the center mass,” Miller said.

He said that other usual means of avoiding deadly force were also impossible in this case.

Hewlett had considered using pepper spray to disable the suspect, but could not get close enough to be sure the spray would be effective, especially in the hillside winds, Miller said.

Another disabling weapon--an electric stun gun that fires darts up to 15 feet--is no longer used by patrol officers, Miller said.

Hewlett, 28, a five-year officer, was not at work Monday, taking three days off that were scheduled before the shooting. Police officials are conducting a criminal investigation by homicide detectives and an administrative review that should be complete late this week, Miller said.

The district attorney’s office is also investigating, as it does in all police-involved shootings.

But Miller said all preliminary reports indicate that the shooting was justified.

Three police officers and two mental health workers at the scene all told investigators the same story, he said.

Randall Feltman, county director of mental health, said that his employees who also tried to persuade Garcia to return to protective custody “vouched for the account presented by the police. They felt the police really had no choice.”

“If someone is determined and capable, they can run away and hurt themselves if they want to,” Feltman said. “That’s basically what happened here.”

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Feltman acknowledged that Garcia’s escape from the Ventura County Medical Center on Hillmont Street underscores the need for the new $7.1-million mental health facility now under construction.

The current building has windows and doors that cannot be locked because of fire codes. Alarms sound when patients leave their rooms. But, in the last three years, two mental patients have fled the ward and killed themselves.

County officials built a wooden fence around the building after a psychiatric patient escaped from the nearby county hospital in 1992 and fatally stabbed a 90-year-old woman in the neighborhood--raising residents’ fears.

Garcia easily scaled the wooden fence after fleeing his bedroom Sunday, Feltman said.

“This is clearly a tragedy that underscores the need for an appropriate, secure psychiatric hospital to hold people that are dangerous to themselves,” Feltman said.

In Santa Paula, where Garcia had long lived in a halfway house for recovering alcoholics, roommate Lawrence Pena said Garcia’s death clearly shows a police overreaction.

“That was a rotten thing,” Pena said. “The cops didn’t have to shoot him like that. He was suicidal, but he wasn’t a threat. A lot of people over at [Alcoholics Anonymous] are hurt today.” Pena, 27, said Garcia had tried to kill himself several times, including an alcohol-and-pill binge about a month ago, and then again last Thursday. Pena said he twice stopped Garcia from cutting his wrists last week. Then Pena called for help.

Santa Paula police report that they responded to another suicide call at Garcia’s residence in 1993. And Miller said county mental health workers said they had seen Garcia five or six times in the last 18 months.

“He was suicidal and depressed all the time, but besides that Ernie was a very good person,” Pena said.

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Santa Paula police said they turned Garcia over to county authorities last Thursday.

Pena said Garcia called him Saturday afternoon while in the mental health facility, worried about what would happen next.

“He wasn’t able to come back here to the [halfway] house because he was drinking,” Pena said. “He didn’t know what he was going to do or where he was going to go.” That is when police believe Garcia drafted a two-page suicide letter to his mother, father, brother and sisters.

“During the autopsy they found in Garcia’s clothing a note he had written to his family,” Miller said. “It said essentially that he’s sorry that his life had to end this way and that he would see them in heaven.”

Garcia’s mother, Guadalupe Peeps of Santa Paula, whom coroner’s officials notified of her son’s death, could not be reached for comment.