Officer Kills Man After Foot Chase in Oxnard

An Oxnard special tactics officer Thursday shot and killed a young man after a brief confrontation, the second such shooting in eight days.

The veteran SWAT officer was driving in downtown Oxnard at 12:15 p.m. when he spotted a 22-year-old at a taco stand who was wanted on arrest warrants. The officer chased him on foot for two blocks, then shot him several times after the man turned and pulled a handgun, authorities said. They recovered a small-caliber revolver.

Charles Joseph Valdez died shortly after arriving at St. John’s Regional Medical Center, authorities said.

Police said he was wanted for a parole violation. Court records show that Valdez had a lengthy criminal record in Oxnard, including three felony convictions since 1997 for auto theft, burglary and battery on a police officer. Misdemeanors include receiving stolen property and possession of drug paraphernalia. In December, he pleaded guilty to driving without a license and speeding.

“He brandished a weapon,” Cmdr. Tom Chronister said. “The officer had no choice but to use deadly force.”

Police Account Is Disputed

A member of the same SWAT unit killed a mentally disturbed 17-year-old boy after he took a student hostage at Hueneme High School on Jan. 10, committing what authorities described as “suicide by cop.”

Three witnesses told The Times on Thursday that the fleeing Valdez stopped abruptly in a parking lot of a methadone treatment clinic and whirled after the sprinting officer yelled, “Stop, I know where you live!”

Valdez then brought up his hands and asked the officer what he wanted.

“He turned around to the officer and said, ‘What’s up?’ ” said Guillermo Quezada, 28, of Oxnard. “And the officer pointed the gun and shot.”

Quezada’s friend Salvador Navaro, 24, said Valdez was “waving his hands” when the officer shot. Valdez fled briefly, as the officer took cover behind a car. “Then the officer shot him again,” Navarro said.

A third witness, who refused to give his name, described the same scene.

The witnesses said that they did not see a gun in Valdez’s hands when he first stopped and turned, but that he and the officer disappeared from view behind parked cars as the chase continued. A few seconds later, shots rang out again.

Chronister said the officer fired two volleys the first time, wounding the suspect, and then fired a second round of shots when Valdez ran a few feet and then turned back toward the officer. Several shots struck Valdez the second time, the spokesman said.

“The officer involved was in great shape; not the kind of guy you want to run from,” Chronister said.

Witnesses said the chase began at the Tacos La Placita stand in the 400 block of C Street between 4th and 5th streets, across from Oxnard’s central park and plaza.

Stand owner Miguel Ernesto Tovar said police arrived just after Valdez and his pregnant girlfriend argued over whether to eat there. Valdez had ordered six carnita tacos as the girlfriend walked away. “He said, ‘No, we’re going to eat here,’ ” Tovar said.

As two officers approached Valdez, he ran and the officers pursued him, Tovar said. One officer retreated to his unmarked white police car, while the other continued the chase.

The girlfriend, who had left before the chase began, came back and waited for Valdez. At about 2:15 p.m. she received a call on her cell phone informing her that her boyfriend was dead.

“She just got hysterical,” Tovar said.

The two recent Oxnard police shootings are the first in three years. Since 1990, there have been at least 13 officer-involved shootings by Oxnard police officers.

In January 1998, an officer shot and killed a man he had stopped for riding a bicycle erratically. Officer Jack Kajawa said that the man, Albert Flores, came at him with a screwdriver.

In 1997, there were two shootings, one involving a transient who was wounded after he apparently reached for an officer’s gun, and the other after a four-hour stand-off with a suspect who was shot to death by a SWAT team marksman.

All of the shootings were ruled justified.

In 1996, there were two shootings, including the accidental slaying of SWAT Officer James Jensen by his partner in an early-morning raid.

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Times staff writers Matt Surman and Tracy Wilson and Times correspondents Katie Cooper and Gail Davis contributed to this story.