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Man dead, officer wounded in Orcutt

April 25, 2011

A “violent confrontation” with two sheriff deputies in Orcutt led to the shooting death of a San Juan Capistrano man Saturday afternoon. [SJCP]

Santa Barbara Sheriff deputies fatally shot Kerry Flood, 52, at a mobile home park in Orcutt.

The deputies were called to the scene at 12:19 p.m. after reports that a man wearing only a towel around his waist was screaming and behaving in a bizarre manner. Flood allegedly began attacking the deputies with a cinder block.

“During the violent confrontation, the deputies attempted to subdue the man using their Tasers, but were unsuccessful,” the press release stated. “As the attack continued, one of the deputies suffered a serious head injury before the suspect was eventually shot.”

Flood was pronounced dead at the scene. One of the deputies was transported to Marian Medical Center.

Both deputies will be placed on paid administrative leave while the shooting is investigated.

Flood was visiting his mother at the Cherry Hill Road mobile home park.


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Many many years ago I arrested 2 different people on PCP.

I was able to communicate or BS with them, and incarceration occurred without incident.

We use to say that PCP was an elephant tranquilizer.

There was a case where someone was on PCP and shot himself in the head several times with a 45 cal, and survived the trama!

My theory or belief on violent people hyped on PCP is, the violent arrows are from old bagage given courage from a drug that numbs the pain (PCP or alcohol).

This guy may have been a psycho on alcohol, mental cases have what we call “crazy strength or power” and a bottle of whiskey helps to removes all pain and fear.


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On the face of it, it looks like a justified escalation of force by anyone in the same situation.


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Perhaps I wasn’t clear. I witnessed these acts. I was a cop in LA County in ’70’s. I smelled the PCP wafting through the neighborhoods at at. I found “Sherms” dipped in PCP. I stopped carloads of idiots sipping PCP from Gerber baby-food jars. (Their gums rotted away as a result). If you choose to ignore my insight so be it. Ignorance is definitely blissful.


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Was this supposed to improve your credibility? You smelled the PCP wafting through the neigborhoods? Why would carloads of people be sipping PCP from Gerber baby-food jars? Apparently, you take this one from a 2006 arrest in Harlem in which a gang was packing PCP in Gerber baby food jars. Otherwise, this reference makes no sense. People do not routinely sip PCP from baby food jars.


I’m sorry, but to be perfectly direct, your perception was clearly influenced by the hype whether you realize it or not. This is EXACTLY how a drunk 52 year old man wielding a cinderblock, who likely just had some mental problems, is perceived as a threat and then BECOMES a threat.. a self fulfilling prophecy. If you handle someone based on expectations, you’re going to elevate your demand for compliance and your aggressiveness. Human beings are animals, and when they fell cornered, a fight or flight response generally emerges. This leads to ESCALATION. By escalating the use of force to gain compliance, it is simply guaranteeing greater resistance to compliance.


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Wonder if PCP is reappearing. Once experienced fighting with a man on PCP, along with eight deputies at LA County General Hospital. The guy had superhuman strength, felt no pain, and was tossing 200 pound deputies around like nothing.


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Again, even though you’re describing a personal experience, programming is evident. From the Center for Substance Abuse Research, University of Maryland:


“Despite its reputation in the media as a drug that causes bizarrely violent behavior and gives users superhuman strength, research does not support the idea that PCP itself is the cause of such behavior and strength. Instead, those who experience violent outbursts while under the influence of PCP often have a history of psychosis or antisocial behavior that may or may not be related to their drug abuse.27 Additionally, someone under the influence of PCP is often unaware of the dangers and limitations they face, and may react to physical confrontations in a way that makes it seem as though they have extraordinary muscular strength.” – http://www.cesar.umd.edu/cesar/drugs/pcp.asp


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Studies are good, but in-person ‘study’ also informs.


A few separate incidents witnessed in the L.A. area in the late 70’s: Guy on PCP, handcuffed behind back, breaks handcuffs. Guy on PCP pulls bolted-in locked shotgun rack, with shotgun, out of police patrol car. Guy on PCP walks though sliding glass door cutting left arm at shoulder joint, left hanging by flesh, kept walking, unaffected. Guy on PCP breaks into elderly female’s house & and murders her, stabbing over 100 times with screwdriver. Guy on PCP shoots police officer, and is then shot several times by other officers, keeps walking, is captured 1/4 mi. away, lives to serve time, get out and shoot another PO.


PCP suspects walking around naked was common as the stuff made them feel like they’re burning-up. It was common to gets calls of guys breaking into apts. to get into a shower or pool.


Go look up new stories from the late 1970’s from LA County. It was bad.


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Honestly, I rarely accept anything in the media at face value. I have FREQUENTLY found that there is more to the story, that the story was not told accurately, that someone was covering for something else, and so on. As a software developer, I frequently encounter this when people are describing a problem to me… I see how whole groups of people can misinterpret what is occurring and how often that relates to some other motivation they have (or someone they want to blame for something).


I have also seen how something in the media can then influence people’s interpretation of events that occur later. That being said, the limited research I did on the subject thus far demonstrates to me that these are exactly the kinds of things that occurred with the 1970s media coverage on incidents where someone was on PCP.


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I personally witnessed a guy on PCP back in the 80’s and I’ll never forget it. I was on a business trip in the downtown district in LA and upon returning to my car, there was a guy beating up cars and my car windows were broken and the hood was dented. When he saw me (I frozen with fear) he ran at me and luckily there was a telephone pole between us and he ran into the pole first (head on in a full charge) which gave me a chance to run into a building. The pole didn’t phase him despite the fact that he cracked his face and forehead open. His hands were all “mashed” from punching out car windows and he tried to take on a bunch of officers. Fortunately for the cops, they knew he was on PCP as soon as they got the call so they showed up with force. They had to hog tie the guy and he looked/acted like he was willing to break his arms to get out of it. It was very scary to watch.

Later , people tried to say that the cops beat the crap out of him. I can see why it was hard to believe that the guy did that to himself but he did. PCP does weird things and they don’t feel pain.


I do wonder why the police would shoot to kill a guy who only has a cinder block for a weapon? You make a good point in your earlier post regarding that question. They could have shot him in the arm and that would have surely stopped him. Don’t they know how to aim for an arm, I though they were supposed to be good shot’s. I know that I can hit an arm if that’s what I aim at so why not the police?


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Police are specifically trained not to think, but to follow procedure. And procedure is to shoot to kill. That is a huge part of the point I am trying to make. If threatened, they will kill you, and then when people want to know why they did that, they will simply repeat the same mantra over and over about going home from their shift alive. So it doesn’t really matter whether the person was a real threat or not, the discussion is always going to go to the same way and they are ALWAYS going to insist they did right thing. They are ALWAYS going to bring PCP or meth up as possibilities.


If it turns out that the person was not a threat, it doesn’t matter because they followed police procedure. They are protected at every turn from any kind of criticism or from taking responsibility for their actions, whether a real threat existed or not. They cannot be prosecuted if their actions were egregious either. And yet, despite all this protection, they still want the benefit of huge salaries and to insist that their job is dangerous and most people wouldn’t want to do it. The reality is that the job is relatively safe, and that for every position there are over a thousand applicants.


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“The reality is that the job is relatively safe, and that for every position there are over a thousand applicants.” This is true.

I have to wonder if the reason the protocol is shot to kill so that they can’t get sued for being a bad shot? I am serious about that question. We do hear of wounding, so we know that there are some officers that will shoot one round in a leg in an effort to only stop the assailant, in fact it happened here not that long ago.

They should not have killed the guy with the cinder block, they should have wounded him. You’re right, they get away with murder. That should change. If they would stop killing people, they wouldn’t feel so bad and need time off afterwards. It must feel unbearable to know that you killed someone that you didn’t have to kill, their conscience must eat them up alive and that’s why they have to go for all the psych treatment afterwards. Better for them if they had thought first and shot last. They should feel guilty, too often, they do commit a murder.


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I think you’re probably really full of yourself yet I’m new here so I’ll keep that one at bay.


Police are specifically trained not to think? That makes no sense at all. They’re fighting a crazy man, one gets his head caved in and the other drops the guy. That’s really GOOD and clear thinking in my book. Can’t you see where every possible “good outcome” was presented to the deceased? Obviously he lacked the ability to put it all together and rest his soul it cost him his life.


If you charge at them with anything you can bet they’ll subdue you with equal or greater force…..however you want it!


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You’re more than welcome to unleash, I can take it. See my post above re: Ray Collins’ 70s experience as a police officer.


I didn’t mean that police are taught not to think at all, but in this context they are. The fact is that police are taught to shoot to kill and never to wound, lest their judgement should turn out to be incorrect or their aim is off. Thus they are taught to react quickly and decisively, not make a decision about whether they should shoot to wound or not. I realize that it may sound harsh, but that is by definition being taught not to think. Now one could argue this is for good reason, but it is what it is.


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only a cinder block???????


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Perhaps it just demonstrates a weakness in officer or training or that officers aren’t in the greatest of shape? I’m not expert on the issue. However I do not that information is power, and not to put too much weight on anecdotes or an individual’s interpretation of events.


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Possible tweeker?


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Man not everything can be explained by the drugs someone uses. There may be a correlation between their character and using a certain drug, but it is not a direct causal relationship like law enforcement would have you believe. Consider that there is a HUGE number of people in our country who take some for of methamphetamines legally via prescription (e.g. adderall) and suddently the idea that meth causes character problems loses its validity. I once knew a woman in her seventies who had been using meth for over 30 years and she was a perfectly lovely woman.


What you should be concerned about is how easily you have been programmed to respond to such things by blaming preordained boogey men.


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Note: To be fair, I should add that the woman in her seventies did ultimately die of a heart attack…


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I remember a time when police could not fire on a person unless that person had a gun and looked like they were planning on using it. Two deputies can’t subdue a 52 year old man with a cinderblock? GIVE ME A BREAK.


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I fell bad for the outcome but what else where they to do? They used tazers to no success, which is non lethal force. They DID try to subdue him and one of the officers was seriously injuryed leaving about one cop now facing the perp.


You know we can all monday morning quarterback this from a distance of comfort but from my read this passes the sniff test that they did everything before they resorted to lethal force. If you read my posts you know I don’t always jump to the defence of cops right away but in this instance I think they will be vinticated and rightfully so. Give them a break for doing and making a tough choise in this instance.


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Sorry, no can do. They were called out about a man acting erratically and when they left there was a man dead. That simply does not pass the smell test. One of the things police do not seem to understand is that the need for compliance often elevates the situation. If the man was not thinking clearly, and they approached him with tazers, he is likely going to think he is acting in self defense when picking up the cinder block. If you then tazer the guy and he manages to pull them out or you didn’t get through his clothing, then now you’ve got a situation where he feels threatened. I can tell you this much, if I feel that my safety is threatened I am not going to give a second thought to the law, I am going to defend myself.


The police are supposed to be PROFESSIONALS at dealing with these situations. But compliance, compliance, compliance is what it’s all about these days. That is why we are constantly being bombarded by stories like this. I’m not being an armchair quarterback. If two cops are called because a guy is half naked and making a lot of noise, and he is not threatening the life of someone else, then the conclusion should not be his death. I can assure you that if he WERE threatening the life of a citizen, that they would not have left that out of the story they provided the media.


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My heart breaks for this man’s elderly mother who must have been looking forward to an Easter Sunday visit with her 52 year old son. I can’t imagine what it would be like to expierence something like that happening.

No doubt the Deputies are suffering as well, it sounds like they tried to subdue him until they took on serious injuries of their own. No one wants to shot a son in front of his elderly mother, my condolences go out to all involved.


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