Deputy Is Exonerated in Man’s Killing

A sheriff’s deputy acted in self-defense when he shot and killed a 26-year-old Thousand Oaks man who wielded a paint ball gun after a high-speed pursuit in May, the Ventura County district attorney’s office concluded in a report released Thursday.

Prosecutors found that Derek Brandon Myers intentionally provoked Deputy Scott Streltzoff into shooting him.

The case has been described by officials as “suicide by cop,” a phenomenon in which a suicidal person afraid to end his or her own life engages a law enforcement officer in a gun battle with the hope of being killed.

“Mr. Myers, a young man diagnosed as severely mentally ill and suicidal, caused his life to be taken at the hands of Deputy Streltzoff by leading the deputy on a high-speed pursuit through residential neighborhoods and then intentionally pointing what appeared to be a short-barreled shotgun at the deputy,” concluded the 14-page report by Deputy Dist. Atty. Ron Janes.

Early May 7, Streltzoff tried to pull Myers over for erratic driving near Hodencamp Road and Hillcrest Drive in Thousand Oaks. A chase ensued when Myers refused to stop.

Myers led the deputy on a short pursuit during which speeds reached 50 mph, twice the legal limit in a residential neighborhood. Minutes later, Myers crashed his car into a retaining wall at the end of a dark cul-de-sac a few blocks from his parents’ home, the report states.

Streltzoff, thinking a foot pursuit would be next, grabbed his flashlight and left the patrol car. Instead of running, Myers was crouched about 20 feet away and pointing what appeared to be a shotgun at the deputy, the report states.

Streltzoff, a three-year veteran, fired eight rounds from a 9-millimeter semiautomatic handgun. Myers was struck six times in the neck, chest, arm, abdomen and thighs, coroner’s investigators said.

From Myers’ clutched hand, deputies recovered a 24-inch black “Stingray” paint-ball gun with a pistol grip and raised front sight. Inside Myers’ car they found a dagger, a sword, an expended artillery shell and an 11-page will.

He died minutes later at Los Robles Regional Medical Center.

“I thought I was dead when he came out of his car with that gun. . . . He came after me with that, I thought I was going to die,” the deputy said minutes after the shooting, the report states.

Even Myers’ sister called sheriff’s officials a day after the shooting and asked that Streltzoff be told the shooting was not his fault. It appears Myers had planned for more than a year to die at the hands of someone else, according to mental health records contained in the prosecutors’ report.

Myers had plans to shoot someone and then have snipers take him out, according to health records. Myers admitted long-term depression, suicidal feelings and was insistent about “forcing someone’s hand to solve the problem,” mental health records state.

Myers had attempted suicide twice by carbon monoxide poisoning and, only two days before his death, by hanging, Myers’ girlfriend told deputies. Myers’ roommate described Myers as the “walking dead.”

“Unfortunately, this is a phenomenon that has happened far too frequently,” Janes said Thursday afternoon, adding that in the last five years Ventura County has had at least two similar suicide-by-cop cases.

Sheriff’s Capt. Keith Parks said Thursday that a departmental investigation found that the deputy had acted within the law. Streltzoff, also 26, returned to regular patrol duty after a couple of days of paid leave, which is standard procedure in such cases.