No weapons found in truck cab with man killed by San Diego officer

This post has been updated. See below for details.

SAN DIEGO -- No guns or explosives were found in the truck of a man shot to death by a San Diego police officer after a high-speed pursuit from San Diego to Escondido, officials said Monday.

During the pursuit, the man, identified as Aaron Devenere, 27, phoned a police dispatcher and said he was holding a gun to the head of the woman driving the truck and that he also had an explosive. That information was relayed to officers.

The driver, a friend of Devenere, “was convinced that Devenere was armed with a handgun and she fled from the police out of fear that Devenere might harm her,” said Escondido Lt. Neal Griffin.

The pursuit began when the driver refused to pull over for a traffic stop for an expired registration Sunday morning, officials said.

Instead, the truck raced north on Interstate 15. The pursuit ended 25 miles later, just inside the Escondido city limits when the truck was disabled by a spike strip.

When the truck stopped, officers “believed the (driver) was in imminent danger of being killed,” Griffin said. One officer fired a single bullet, and Devenere was declared dead at the scene.

[Updated, 6:51 p.m. Jan. 27: No weapons were found in the cab, but knives were found in the truck bed, Griffin said.]

Devenere’s family told reporters he had recently been released from jail after serving time for a drug conviction and that he had failed a drug test and may have been afraid he would be sent back to jail.

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tony.perry@latimes.com