S.J. police say man didn’t reach into waistband before he was fatally shot.

Police mistakenly say suspect in fatality reached for waistband

SAN JOSE — Before police shot and killed wanted homicide suspect Richard Jacquez on Monday evening, officers looking for him were told three things: He had already killed, he was going to kill the woman riding in his car to keep her quiet, and he was willing to “shoot it out” with officers trying to capture him.

Police say for those reasons the officer was justified when he shot an unarmed Jacquez in the back as the suspect ran toward a family home at the end of a car chase on Kirkhaven Court. He believed Jacquez was a threat to harm or kill someone else.

But they also admit their credibility was hurt when immediately after the shooting police told assembled media that Jacquez reached into his waistband before he was shot. The same reason was given the previous night after officers killed an armed suspect connected to the same Aug. 13 slaying at a Lundy Avenue office complex.

The problem is that in Monday’s shooting, it wasn’t true.

It left police having to recant the waistband claim. And they will face more scrutiny about the shooting. A complaint has been filed with the Independent Police Auditor by LaDoris Cordell, who last month stepped down from heading the office.

They may also be dogged about the waistband error.

“In this case, we made a mistake. In the spirit of being transparent, we released an initial statement that was not factually correct,” assistant chief Eddie Garcia said. “We rectified it after we interviewed all the witnesses. Moving forward we need to step back and give more general information, knowing that once we get the facts, we can give a more detailed statement.”

Jim Dudley, a former San

Francisco police captain and now a criminal-justice lecturer at San Francisco State University, said the error hurts a police force not with skeptics or supporters, but with citizens toward the center of that spectrum.

“When something like that happens, you confirm the skeptics’ belief, but you also put doubt into people who may have put a lot of faith in the past,” said Dudley, who was involved in an officer-involved shooting in 1989. “It’s that middle gray area you have to worry about alienating.”

Dudley added: “But as a member of the public, I care more about how the individual was a threat to the community.”

To that end, Garcia said officers in the department’s MERGE unit tasked with finding and arresting Jacquez were armed with a felony murder warrant for him, intelligence that he was planning to kill a woman believed to have possible incriminating knowledge in the Aug. 13 killing of Christopher Maxwell Wrenn, and information indicating he was willing to get into a firefight with police.

Police tailed Jacquez’s car, leading to a chase that ended at the cul-de-sac and, within moments, an officer shooting the suspect.

“From the officer’s mindset, with what (Jacquez) was suspected of doing and is capable of, people who are wanted for murder who are running will go to great lengths not to go back to jail,” Garcia said. “Some officers may think suspect was not running away, but trying to break into another house and possibly do harm to someone there.”

Police, working off surveillance video that depicted at least part of an attack where Jacquez and two other suspects — one dead, one still being sought — purportedly killed Wrenn, also believed Jacquez was armed with the same Tec-9 assault pistol he was seen carrying in the video.

But Garcia warned against judging the shooting with hindsight.

Officers “had received info that suspect was armed, possibly with same weapon he used in the murder,” Garcia said.

It was actually at another location in San Jose and eventually recovered by police.

The totality of the circumstances, Garcia said, made the shooting authorized on the rationale that Jacquez posed a significant threat to the public.

Critics say, however, that San Jose police still have a lot of explaining to do.

Michael Haddad, an Oakland civil rights lawyer who has represented families of police-shooting victims, says deadly force is only allowed if police reasonably believe they are facing an immediate threat of death or serious injury.

“You can’t shoot someone in the back just because they’re running away and they used to be dangerous,” Haddad said. “They have to pose an immediate threat. You can’t just make up a lot of possibilities in your mind and shoot him to avoid what you’re afraid might happen.”

Samuel Walker, retired professor of criminal justice at the University of Nebraska and expert on police accountability, said the San Jose police’s credibility has been undermined by first suggesting, then recanting, that Jacquez was reaching for a gun.

“They picked what is really, from their side, the easiest and best explanation — he was reaching for a gun,” Walker said. “Well, it didn’t happen. It makes everything else they say suspect.”

Walker says it’s clear that the woman in the car was facing no immediate threat from Jacquez since he was running away from her. As far as worrying that Jacquez might create more problems by running into the house, Walker said, “police departments are trained to deal with barricades and hostage situations where no one dies.”