San Diego to Review Policy After Shooting by Police

In the wake of a fatal police shooting of a man waving a tree branch, Mayor Susan Golding announced Wednesday that the City Council will publicly review the Police Department’s policy on the use of deadly force.

A coalition of African American and Latino activists, backed by former Mayor Maureen O’Connor, called months ago for the council to hold such a session to allow community members to express their concern and, in some cases, their outrage over police conduct in a number of cases. That demand came after the fatal July police shooting of former pro football player Demetrius Dubose in the Mission Beach neighborhood.

Golding said she had decided even before Tuesday’s shooting of a man described by police as mentally disturbed to put the issue on the council agenda for Feb. 22.

She added that she wants to wait until hearing the police chief and others at the session before deciding whether the policy or training should be changed. “We may come to the conclusion that it’s a good policy,” she said.

Golding’s announcement came just hours after two City Council members held a news conference to express their annoyance with her for not complying with earlier requests for a public review of the shooting policy, which calls for deadly force only when officers have a reasonable belief that they or others face imminent threat of death or serious bodily injury.

“This to me should be sufficient to get her attention,” Councilman George Stevens said of the latest shooting.

Stevens said he is concerned that police continue firing when a suspect is down and no longer a threat. “How many shots are enough?” he asked.

Roman Catholic Msgr. Joseph Carroll, who runs the city’s largest shelter for the homeless, said Tuesday’s shooting in the Midway commercial district was caused by police officers’ irrational fear of the homeless and the mentally ill.

“There is a sense of fear here that I think police overreacted to,” said Carroll, who joined Stevens and Councilman Byron Wear, both of whom are campaigning for mayor. “That person had some rights. . . . We’ve got to learn to reach out to these people rather than be afraid of them.”

Golding, in a telephone interview, dismissed Carroll’s assertion as “pure speculation.”

“The last thing I want to do is speculate on a matter like this,” Golding said. “Father Carroll wasn’t there; I wasn’t there.”

The shooting occurred after police responded to a call from two people who complained that a man, without provocation, had hit them on the head with a stick.

Five officers responded and ordered the man to drop the stick, later described as a three-foot tree branch. Police say that the man, who was outside a McDonald’s restaurant, became combative and “suddenly charged at them.”

Three officers fired from a distance of eight to 15 feet. The man, about 35 years old, was pronounced dead at the UC San Diego Medical Center. The man carried no identification and had not yet been identified by authorities Wednesday afternoon.

“It was very clear this individual was of an assaultive nature,” said Lt. Ray Sigwalt of the homicide unit, who added that police had had an encounter with him two weeks earlier.

Witnesses told reporters that the man became agitated when a police dog rushed toward him. In the melee, the dog was struck in the paw by a bullet fired by one of the officers.

The dog, a German shepherd named Hasso, was rushed to a veterinary hospital for emergency surgery. Two San Diego television stations showed the dog undergoing surgery while worried police officers hovered near the operating table.

The issue of the dog seemed to fan the controversy. A day after the shooting, the corner where it took place was festooned with flower memorials and small protest signs, including one reading, “Police murdered a human being but all they care about is their dog.”

In the Dubose case last July, the former Tampa Bay Buccaneer linebacker was shot after a confrontation with officers in which he tussled with them and took away their martial arts weapons. The case, after other high-profile police shootings of black suspects across the nation, drew criticism from the Urban League and other civil rights groups.

San Diego police have shot and killed three people this year. Five were killed last year and three in 1998.Only one San Diego officer has ever been charged criminally in an on-duty shooting.