Review Finds Officer Killed Bicyclist in Self-Defense

An Oxnard officer was acting in self-defense when he fired 13 shots into a 46-year-old man and killed him after the man lurched toward him with an 18-inch screwdriver, a district attorney’s review concluded Wednesday.

Albert Trujillo Flores was shot by Oxnard Police Officer Jack Kujawa about 12:30 a.m. Jan. 6 after he stopped Flores, who was riding his bicycle erratically along a south Oxnard street.

Apart from Kujawa, a 4 1/2-year department veteran assigned to patrol the area, there were no witnesses to the shooting.

Kujawa, 29, was placed on paid administrative leave while the shooting was investigated, but has since returned to duty.

Senior Deputy Dist. Atty. James Ellison, who wrote the district attorney’s report, said that Kujawa was reacting in self-defense.

Why Flores would have attacked the officer is still a mystery, Ellison said.

“There’s nothing in his background or his behavior that day that would explain why Flores would have reacted in that way,” Ellison said.

Ellison said investigators spoke with Flores’ mother, who told them she was baffled and disturbed by the findings.

“Basically what we described to her did not correspond to the behavior of the person that she knew,” Ellison said.

Toxicology tests showed no alcohol in Flores’ system, but did show traces of Valium. His mother said he had a prescription for Valium to treat depression.

Flores’ mother could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

Flores had previously been arrested on suspicion of assault and twice, long ago, for alleged misdemeanors, according to Oxnard police records. He was not convicted in any of the cases.

In addition, he had been evicted from a mobile-home park in 1993 after he had a violent argument with his girlfriend.

The night he was killed, events moved quickly and there was little time for discussion, according to the district attorney’s report.

As Kujawa got out of his patrol car, he greeted Flores with: “What’s up?”

Standing next to his bicycle, Flores responded: “What’s up, officer?”

He briefly turned away from the officer, then turned quickly back, swinging what Kujawa thought was a knife but turned out to be the screwdriver.

Kujawa tried to ward off blows with one hand and pulled his service revolver out with the other. Backing away from Flores, who was lunging at him with the screwdriver, Kujawa started firing his weapon.

He kept firing until he emptied all 16 rounds, hitting Flores 13 times. Kujawa told investigators that Flores kept coming at him so he continued to fire, eventually falling onto his back.

Kujawa told investigators that he kept Flores off him by keeping his left leg up and pushing Flores back while he fired.

No one else witnessed the shooting, but several people heard the shots and came out of their homes to find a frightened-looking Kujawa standing over the fatally wounded Flores.

An officer who arrived immediately after the shooting found Kujawa, gun in hand, saying, “He tried to stab me and kill me. I can’t believe it.”

The district attorney’s report said the physical evidence, the location of blood stains and Flores’ wounds support Kujawa’s account of the shooting.

“Officer Kujawa’s decision to respond to Mr. Flores’ potentially deadly attack with deadly force was completely within the limits of the law,” the report concluded. “It is the District Attorney’s conclusion that Officer Jack Kujawa acted reasonably under the circumstances that he found himself in, and the shooting of Albert Trujillo Flores was justified.”