2 Santa Clara officers not charged in killing

Two Santa Clara police officers won’t be criminally prosecuted for fatally shooting a mentally ill woman who was suicidal and highly intoxicated when she charged at the officers with a baseball bat, authorities said Thursday.

Sgt. Alan Wolf and Officer Andrew McGuire acted lawfully on April 13, 2014, when they shot and killed 53- year- old Deborah Colbert when she rushed toward them in a narrow hallway with an aluminum bat raised over her head, said James Gibbons- Shapiro, a Santa Clara County assistant district attorney.

“The officers acted with restraint in the face of a situation that was dangerous and volatile, and then with justified force to defend themselves when attacked,” the prosecutor wrote in a 17- page report.

The incident began around 4: 50 p. m. when police received a call from Colbert, who threatened to harm herself and others, police said. She said she had taken pills, wanted police to shoot her and would attack officers with a bat, authorities said.

When officers responded to her apartment in the Riverwood Place complex at 5090 Lick Mill Blvd., they could hear her yelling expletives, the report said. As Wolf tried to open her door with a key supplied by the manager, the door “flew open” and Colbert immediately confronted the officers with the bat, authorities said.

Fearing for their safety, Wolf and McGuire opened fire, striking the woman three times. The officers weren’t hurt.

An autopsy determined that Colbert had a blood- alcohol level of 0.66 percent, more than eight times the legal driving limit of 0.08 percent. Eight days before she was killed, she fought with officers who responded to her home and was taken in restraints by paramedics for an emergency psychiatric evaluation, authorities said.