Police Shoot Man Outside Estranged Wife’s Home

Officers shot and critically wounded an Oxnard man early Sunday in front of the house where his estranged wife lived, after the man lunged at police with a knife, authorities said.

Daniel B. Bravo, 42, was shot as many as seven times by police officers about 5:30 a.m. in the front of the gray, stuccoed home at 1266 W. Birch St.

Bravo, who was not living at the home at the time of the shooting, was taken to St. John’s Regional Medical Center where he underwent surgery and was listed in critical condition late Sunday.

According to police, officers responded to a domestic dispute call at the home and found Bravo standing on the walkway of the home, holding a knife. Officers then spent about half an hour trying to coax Bravo into surrendering his weapon, but were unsuccessful, police said.

Officers then doused Bravo with pepper spray in an attempt to end the confrontation, but authorities said Bravo charged police with the knife, forcing them to shoot.

“He was uncooperative with officers and wouldn’t relinquish his weapon,” said Oxnard Police Sgt. Lee Wilcox. “That’s why they had to spray him, but we’re still investigating what happened.”

Witnesses to the shooting, however, asserted that the use of deadly force was unwarranted, especially against a man who was armed with only a knife and surrounded by several police officers.

“He didn’t run after them; he came out with his head down like he was trying to get away from all that spray,” said one resident who was about 150 feet away when the shooting occurred. “He didn’t have any time to surrender, they just shot him up. It’s wrong what they [police] did, just wrong.”

Bravo’s father, Sal, said a family friend called him early in the morning and said his son was in some sort of trouble. Sal Bravo, who lives less than half a mile away on Juniper Street, arrived just in time to watch police shoot his son.

“He kept calling my name, but they wouldn’t let me speak to him,” Sal Bravo said while anxiously pacing outside the cordoned-off scene. “Then they shot him and kept shooting him.”

According to his father, Daniel Bravo, a construction worker and lifelong Oxnard resident, and his wife of 25 years, Connie, were in the midst of a divorce.

Connie Bravo had recently obtained a restraining order against him. The two had already put their two-bedroom house up for sale and were in the process of finalizing their divorce when the incident occurred.

Connie Bravo was inside the home during the shooting, but was not injured.

“They were real nice people and I knew they were getting divorced, but I never heard them arguing,” said another neighbor who asked not to be identified. “It’s bad what happened, real bad.”

Scores of investigators spent most of the day reconstructing the incident by gathering evidence and interviewing neighbors.

In addition to the more than 40 yellow tags marking evidence and brass bullet casings, a bundle of Bravo’s bloody clothes lay in the small, grassy front yard. On the walkway near the freshly clipped bushes were several crushed beer cans and an open cooler.

Sunday’s incident was the second officer-involved shooting this year in Oxnard.

On Jan. 13, a SWAT officer shot and killed 36-year-old auto mechanic Larry Pankey outside his home after a four-hour standoff following a domestic dispute.

SWAT Officer Scott Hebert fired the deadly shot after Pankey reached into his waistband as four other officers moved in for the arrest.

It was later learned that Pankey was unarmed and that his gun was lying the seat of his car just a few feet away.

The two officers involved in Sunday’s shooting were placed on paid administrative leave pending results of the department’s investigation.