VENTURA : Officer Vindicated in Fatal Shooting

A Ventura police officer was legally justified when he shot and killed a man who was pointing a cigarette lighter that looked like a handgun, district attorney’s officials announced Friday.

In a 23-page report that chronicles the events surrounding the April 29 shooting, prosecutors concluded that Officer Tim Turner acted reasonably when he mistook the cigarette lighter for a handgun and responded by firing a single shotgun blast at James Anthony Zendejas.

“The lighter looks exactly like a gun,” Ventura County Deputy Dist. Atty. Donna Gissing wrote. “Thus, the ‘gun/lighter’ certainly would have . . . created the appearance of mortal danger.”

Zendejas, 21, of Ventura, was killed shortly before midnight after he pointed the lighter at three men he attempted to rob as they stood outside an apartment on El Medio Street in the Ventura Avenue area, the report states.

According to witnesses, Zendejas repeatedly pointed the lighter at the men and demanded their money. The son of one of the men, who was watching from inside the apartment, called police and reported the presence of an armed assailant.

Turner arrived moments later and took cover behind a fence as he approached the scene. It was from that spot that the shot was fired, Gissing wrote.

Turner, acting on the advice of his attorney, refused to talk to investigators about his actions that night. Prosecutors determined the officer’s actions based on such things as where the expended shotgun shell landed, the autopsy report and witness accounts.

Zendejas was at a party in the hours before the shooting and had a blood-alcohol level of 0.21% when he was shot. A person is considered too intoxicated to drive with a blood-alcohol level of 0.08% or higher.