Previously unseen footage related to police shooting released
The Eureka Police Department released a trove of documents on Tuesday related to the fatal officer-involved shooting of 51-yearold Eureka resident John Karl Sieger on July 23, 2020. The newly released information includes body-cam footage, the autopsy report, transcripts or recordings of interviews, transcribed police radio communication from the incident, additional photo/video evidence as well as all related investigative reports.
The release of these documents comes shortly after the finalized coroner’s report, the final piece needed for review by the Humboldt County District Attorney Maggie Fleming.
Now that EPD’S portion of the investigation is complete, Eureka Police Chief Steve Watson said it was time to release all related documents in the interest of transparency.
“Really what this does is it allows people to take their own look at the evidence and draw their own conclusions,” Watson told the Times-standard on Tuesday evening. “That’s one of the benefits of this increased transparency and what the law now allows us to do.”
Watson referred to the 2018 passage of SB 1421, which updated existing California law to require the release of specified police officer personnel records in accordance with the California Public Records Act. This includes “an incident in which the use of force by a peace officer or custodial officer against a person resulted in death, or in great bodily injury.”
“The law does require that we redact a few things and are allowed to redact a few other things in the interest of privacy. These are things that are not directly related to the incident itself, home addresses and things like that,” Watson said.
The released information includes a 295-page criminal investigation report and a 149-page internal shooting review. Watson said the investigation was “very thorough and well-organized” and found that the shooting itself “to be within EPD policy reasonable, justified and necessary.”
“What it comes down to is the officers had no choice in defense of their own lives, the lives of their fellow officers and anyone else from the public that could have been in the line of fire,” Watson said. “I want to emphasize this is not the outcome that anyone wanted to have happen.”
Watson explained the timeline of events from when officers initially responded to the 2800 block of Lowell Street just after 5 p.m. for the report of a possibly armed man making suicidal threats up to Sieger’s death.
“They were present at the scene for multiple hours. They worked very hard to not press the issue with Mr. Sieger,” Watson said. “They used de-escalation tactics intentionally, including time talk tactics and other tools available to them. We called mental health crisis counselors to the scene early on trying to communicate with Mr. Sieger to try to talk them down and get help.”
After about two hours at the scene, officers kept their distance while still holding the perimeter to the public. At this point, Watson said the Incident Commander considered walking away from the situation after officers had done “due diligence.” Then 7:49 p.m. officers heard three gunshots from the backyard, “confirming that he had a loaded handgun and further reinforcing that he posed a danger to himself and others,” Watson said.