Authorities tight-lipped on details in fatal police shooting
Wednesday marked a week since the shooting occurred along Highway 84
NEWARK >> A week after a Fremont police officer fatally shot a man authorities said was armed and driving a stolen vehicle, law enforcement investigators have not released any new details, including the identities of the officer and the man he killed.
The shooting, which authorities say happened a little before 3 p.m. March 24 on Highway 84, just northeast of Newark Boulevard and west of Interstate 880, caused massive traffic backups for motorists headed eastbound off the Dumbarton Bridge and brought dozens of law enforcement personnel to the area in marked and unmarked cars, as well as armored vehicles.
The California Highway Patrol is the lead agency investigating the incident because it occurred on a highway, Fremont police have said.
Highway Patrol spokesman Officer John Fransen said Tuesday his agency is not providing any more information because it could jeopardize the investigation.
“That’s not going to happen for a while because it’s still being actively investigated. It’s essentially a homicide investigation,” Fransen said in an interview.
“There’s a lot of moving parts so we wouldn’t start sharing a bunch of details about any shooting, really,” he said.
Fransen said the situation is complicated because the Highway Patrol is investigating Fremont police while Fremont PD is conducting its own internal investigation and the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office has launched its own probe, which is standard procedure when police kill someone in the county.
Although Fransen wouldn’t share further details of the shooting or what led up to it, he alluded to the Highway Patrol’s March 24 statement that the suspect was driving a stolen car “associated with an armed robbery.”
“He was an armed suspect at the time of an officer-involved shooting,” Fransen said. “So I think the vast majority of the public can connect the dots on that, without having to get into the minute details on that.”
Geneva Bosques, a spokeswoman for the Fremont Police Department, acknowledged in an interview Tuesday that in past police shootings, Fremont typically has released a police narrative within several hours of an incident, followed by names of the officer or officers who fired a weapon a few days later.
“We do have our own protocol, but when we’re being investigated by another agency, we can’t compromise their investigation, so we stay in our own lane,” Bosques said.
“We do of course know what occurred. We have been able to review the officer’s body-worn camera,” she said.
“There is enough video to show … what situation he was placed in, and we are very thankful he is alive today,” she said about the officer who killed the man.
The CHP, in its prior statement, said the shooting happened around 2:48 p.m., following a vehicle pursuit.
Video posted to Twitter by a person inside a car stopped on the highway near the scene showed what appeared to be a man lying motionless on the street next to a Toyota Highlander.
Behind the Toyota, a Fremont police motorcycle with its red and blue lights activated was lying on its side. Behind it was a Fremont police officer standing with his gun drawn and aimed at the man on the ground.
A handgun was seen on the ground near the car as investigators combed the scene.
The shooting was the second by Fremont police this year, and the first fatal one. Fremont police have been involved in 16 shooting incidents since 2012, according to the Police Department.