SDPD releases video of officers fatally shooting homicide suspect on May 29.

Incident followed fatal attack on man in City Heights

San Diego police on Monday released video that shows officers fatally shooting a suspected gunman they said killed another man in an unprovoked attack in City Heights in late May.

Three officers — two on a SWAT team, one a dog handler — opened fire on May 29 when Ronnie Kong, 32, pointed a gun at officers who responded to a 911 call about a shooting earlier that day, police said.

Police allege that Kong walked out of his apartment, jumped a fence to an adjacent property and confronted Juan Gudino Lopez, who was working in a backyard, about 3:30 p.m. Police said Lopez, 62, was heard pleading with Kong before Lopez was killed.

In an audio clip released

Monday, a 911 caller reports gunshots. The caller then adds, “Can you hurry please? There’s someone down.”

Officers found Lopez unconscious and carried him to an alley where medics put him in an ambulance, then took him to a hospital.

Witnesses, meanwhile, alerted officers to Kong’s possible whereabouts — a nearby apartment. Officers set up a perimeter and called in a SWAT team.

Video from an officer’s body-worn camera shows at least six officers, some in tactical gear, huddled together in a walkway outside an apartment building, with guns draw as they face a staircase. Officers repeatedly ask Kong to walk out with his hands in the air and warn him that he could be shot or bitten by a police dog if he doesn’t follow their commands.

“Nobody wants to hurt you,” an officer says in the video clip as a police dog barks incessantly.

Fewer than 45 seconds into the video, a person — who police said was Kong — walks out and stands near the top of the staircase. Officers tell him repeatedly to walk down the stairs with his hands in the air.

“You’re not in any trouble. We need to talk to you,” an officer says. “Ronnie, come on down. Follow my commands and I promise you won’t get hurt.”

Suddenly, seconds before the shooting, the officer instructs Kong repeatedly to keep his hands out of his waistband. Officers then open fire.

The body camera doesn’t capture Kong in the seconds before or during the shooting. Police released video from a second officer’s body camera, saying the officer, from a different vantage point outside a nearby building, was able to see Kong point the gun at the other officers, though the video doesn’t show Kong.

Police also released two photos that show a gun and knife they found on the staircase after the shooting.

Police have said Kong had a “history of mental issues” and was under investigation at the time of the shooting. Authorities were seeking a court order to temporarily strip him of weapons. Days before the shooting, police said, Kong threatened his mother with a gun and fired three shots in their apartment on Euclid Avenue near University Avenue.

The officers involved in the shooting were identified as canine unit Officer Christopher Luth, a 15-year department veteran; and Northern Division officers and SWAT team members Andrew Campbell and Tony Maraschiello, who have been with the department for six years.

The encounter marked the third time Luth fired a gun in the line of duty. In both previous instances, the shootings involved a homicide suspect. The District Attorney’s Office said the shootings were justified and the officers involved would not face criminal charges.

In the first shooting, in 2011, Luth and six other officers were involved in a shootout with Dejon Marquee White after he fatally shot Officer Jeremy Henwood. In 2015, Luth shot and wounded Felipe De Jesus Vega, a double-murder suspect, during a SWAT standoff in City Heights.

The footage in the shooting that led to Kong’s death comes on the heels of the release of other videos of recent shootings by San Diego police. Changes in state law that took effect last year require police to release footage of police shootings and other serious uses of force within 45 days, but in recent weeks San Diego police have released footage of three shootings within days.

The most recent shooting by San Diego police occurred on Menlo Avenue in City Heights Thursday, marking the sixth shooting by officers from the department this year.

david.hernandez@sduniontribune.com