Family Wants Shooting Details

A day after police shot an unarmed Anaheim man meeting his mother outside the Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove, his family on Friday demanded an explanation.

Police offered few details except to say that the wounded man, Jeffrey S. Santelli, 32, had been driving erratically and became involved in an altercation when approached by an officer.

Family members disputed that, saying an undercover officer shot Santelli with no provocation.

“My wife saw the whole thing, and there was just no struggle,” said Santelli’s stepfather, Burton Winer. “There was no struggle, no altercation, no nothing.”

Santelli remained in intensive care at UCI Medical Center in Orange with a gunshot wound to his abdomen. He had stopped by the Crystal Cathedral to drop off a credit card for his mother, a longtime church secretary, when he was shot by an officer in the Anaheim Police Department gang unit about 5:40 p.m. Thursday, church officials said.

Garden Grove police and the Orange County district attorney’s office are investigating the shooting. Police did not release the name of the officer who fired the shot.

Anaheim authorities said the officer was part of a six-person gang unit conducting surveillance in Garden Grove. During the operation, the plainclothes officer followed Santelli’s Ford Explorer into the church’s parking lot at Lewis Street and Chapman Avenue, they said.

“The officer drove onto the property because he noticed erratic driving and other suspicious activity,” said Garden Grove Police Lt. Patrick Thrasher. “During the course of his investigation, the officer was confronted by the subject, who was shot once in the abdomen. It is unknown at this time what the circumstances were that led to the shooting.”

On Thursday, Anaheim police spokesman Sgt. Rick Martinez said a witness heard the officer yelling, “Back off!,” but could provide no further details.

Santelli’s stepfather said there was no confrontation. Santelli’s mother, Maureen Winer, could not be reached for comment. A church spokesman who spoke to her after the incident said she was distraught and did not know why her son was shot.

When Santelli stopped by the Crystal Cathedral, he and his mother parked side by side in the lot, talking. Then Maureen Winer heard a man shout from behind her car, said John Charles, director of public relations at the church.

“She heard some man’s voice call out to her son, who got out of his car,” Charles said. “He walked behind her car and she heard a gun go off. She watched him fall in her rearview window. The whole thing transpired in a matter of seconds.”

Church officials and neighbors said they were shocked by the shooting, because the area sees little serious crime.