Front Page  »  

Santa Maria police shoot and kill another suspect

August 3, 2012

Santa Maria police officers shot and killed a man Thursday following a high-speed chase.

This is the fourth recent officer involved shooting in north Santa Barbara County and the second time in less than a week that a suspect involved in a car chase has been shot and killed by Santa Maria police officers.

The incident started when a 911 caller reported a man brandishing a gun in Santa Maria. Officers pursued the man north on Highway 101 to Nipomo. The suspect then exited on Tefft Street, drove through Guadalupe and headed back towards Santa Maria.

A spike strip placed by California Highway Patrol officers outside Santa Maria near Black Road stopped the vehicle shortly after 6 p.m.

Several Santa Maria police officers shot at the suspect after he stepped out of his vehicle with a gun in his hand.

The Santa Barbara Sheriff’s department is conducting an investigation into the shooting.

On Wednesday, amid public unrest following the shooting death of officer Albert Covarrubias Jr., Santa Maria Police Chief Danny Macagni was placed on paid administrative leave and Commander Craig Ritz was put in charge of the department.

 


Loading...
Subjects:             
Related:


49 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

Seems like they should have waited an appropriate amount of time before shooting another suspect….oh wait…..you never know when you will have to defend your life against some nutcase that is trying to kill you.


1

Well-well-well: Check this out for all you Monday Morning 1/4 backs:


“For the first time, federal officials also revealed that Terry and the elite squad of federal agents initially fired bean bags — not bullets — at the heavily armed drug cartel crew in the mountains south of Tucson in December 2010. During the exchange, Terry was shot and killed.”


http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/07/09/justice-unseals-indictment-charging-five-in-brian-terry-death/


Yes, bean bags and “Can’t we all just get along” are what we should use when someone pulls a gun OR A REPLICA and points it at a cop. Thank you. I’ll be buying some sage bundles and drums for the drum circle shortly….BARF


0

Thanks for the link.


Few citizens know what’s it like to be threatened by a forearm by a person who has little regard for law or life. Those that respond to such calls are living on the edge of morbidity and mortality until the situation is code 4. It’s one of the more extreme jobs we ask of our public savants.


0

HAHAHAHAHAHA I have to laugh at my spelling and gramer. That’s what I get before my early cup of Joe. I wish this system had an edit feature like many forums do..


0

That misspelling on forearm was funny. Maybe it was the forearm’s of Popeye?


0

Ok, Jack L, you have a point there.


However, I’m curious about your thinking regarding civilians using deadly force to defend themselves. The same? Different?


A recent case in point:


65 Year Old Woman With A Gun Chases Off 5 Armed Robbers


http://endoftheamericandream.com/archives/65-year-old-woman-with-a-gun-chases-off-5-armed-robbers


0

Well Gimlet, I can say with certainty, that if many of my friends, or I was in that Aurora theater that night, the freak “Joker” psycho would have encountered gunfire directed toward him. I can’t say that I would have dropped him, but I darn sure believe I would have…Please see below for details:


http://www.myfoxorlando.com/story/19035444/customer-shoots-suspects-during-internet-cafe-robbery

And SOMEone wants to take guns from US?


0

I am totally in support of the Right to Bear Arms but comments about being able to do something in the Aurora theater shooting case are wildly speculative at best. There were mobs of panicking people trying to escape and a dense cloud of tear gas clouding vision. While you or I or many others would have certainly tried to do take down the nutcase, it would have been pure luck for someone to have been in a position to do so without running a severe risk of shooting someone else in the process. Please temper the macho posturing with a sense of reality.


0

Fracking amazing. All of the posts questioning the SMPD’s version of events, based on their past history of lying to the public about some of their shooting incidents and the very bad leadership they had until just recently when Macagni was made “ex-chief,” have been removed.


I didn’t know the Tribune had taken over message-board management of CCN.


0

Another cup of coffee perhaps? Wrong board. Ive seen this one from the beginning. lol


0

I think they’re all still there, this article is about ANOTHER shooting involving the SMPD, second one this week.


0

“I didn’t know the Tribune had taken over message-board management of CCN.”


Speaking of shooting first and asking questions later.


http://calcoastnews.com/2012/07/man-shot-killed-by-santa-maria-police/


0

My bad. Mea culpa. I don’t know why I assumed the SMPD couldn’t have possibly shot another person already. That truly was stupid on my part. Again, mea culpa.


0

LOL LOL ;)


0

Sounds to me there is a problem with crooks in Santa Maria. Havent they got the message? Don’t brandish a gun in the presence of the Police. What you wish for will come true. Good job SMPD. I am happy to hear all of the Officers were able to finish another shift safely.


0

Begining to sound like there might be a problem with the Santa Maria P.D.?


Also I wonder why (not sure if they have one way or the other) don’t they use non-lethel like bean bag? You can still aim for the chest like taught and from what I have seen, it definately drops the suspect and makes them wish they hadn’t been hit by it.


0

This isnt TV. The real world isnt so perfect.


1

It sounds like TV, cripes even the cops shoot at each other down there, accidentally and intentionally!


0

What’s with the red on this post? In the last year, the SM police have accidentally shot each other and one of their own had to be shot by another one of their own for firing at his brothers rather than putting his hands behind his back. Must be a bunch of LE on this thread who don’t like the truth.


0

Careful MarkJames in trying to engage in any meanfull conversation about this, you may get hit over the head.


Your point is what I am wondering. I am not trying to say that there is neccessarily a problem in the SMPD. I am seeing more on SMPD in the last year than any time in the past, in a short time frame. Is the crime rate (which we all know is high in S.M.) getting worse? Is there a possible problem with the SMPD? These are QUESTIONS not statements. Kicking around the ball for some give and take


Unforunately a few here like to just think they are smarter than the rest rather than maybe sharing some insight. Too bad. It is interesting to me to see different views and or angles on this that one may not have thought of.


0

As far as I’ve read, it appears that all of the shootings have been related to the perps having a weapon that they didn’t distance themselves from. Santa Maria is just plain full of criminals and gangs with guns.


0

BTDT,


Sure, why not use non-lethal force against the criminals lethal force! Sounds fair, doesn’t it? Would you like to be put into the same situation under your guise?


“Okay fellow officers, he is exiting his car with a gun, take out your bean bags and try to hit him in his chest to disable him while he may possibly fire back with live ammunition! Ready? Fire!”


You don’t bring a bean bag to a possible gun fight!!! H-E-L-L-O?!


0

You all missed the most import part in your zeal to jump on the QUESTION! I asked the question WHY not. I got the answer without all the smugness of replies here.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bean_bag_round


So the use of a standard issue weapon in this case was the appropreiate response.


0

BTDT,


Reread your statement. The term “why not” was used by you, “in lieu of”, the police guns, period. This is why you got the logical refutations from us that you did. You’re now trying to conveniently acquiesce out of your subjectively embarrassing, and absolute statement that you made before.


This is barring the fact of you questioning the Santa Maria Police Department to begin with, and therefore setting the stage for your initial comment! Tsk, tsk. :(


0

Nice spin Ted in trying to get into my head. You know no more what I think, nor do I of you. If you go back and LOOK at my statement about the police and then the beanbags you will notice that they both end with a question mark. Do you remember in school why we use punctuation? It is to covey to others what we are saying (use of an exclamation point) and or asking.


It was an honest question in asking why don’t they use bean bags. Not sure if distance or what. I remember reading about them and shootable netting back in the eighties in Popular Mechanics as a possible solution to police situations. In reading this article it got me thinking back to P.M. as to why don’t we. In looking up the answer on Wiki I could see why not.


I was trying to engage other posters but was surprised by the rudeness of some like yourself. Funny for such a Christian God fearing sort like yourself but I find most are hypocrites anyway.


0

BTDT,


Semantics. Enough said.


0

Semantics: meaning of words.


I gave you what the meaning is of, question that I asked. Thought that was simple enough for you to understand.


0

BTDT,


Don’t be dishonest about the overall meaning of semantics to support your otherwise weak assertions!


Semantics: the meaning, or an interpretation of the meaning, of a word, sign, sentence, etc. KEY WORD: “sentence” Get it?


What part of “enough said” didn’t you understand?


0

Oh o.k interpretation of the meaning. The meaning of the sentence would be the thought conveyed by the one making it. It is my thoughts, nothing else. Nice try again Ted. You know NOTHING about what my thoughts are.


0

keep your thoughts to yourself believe me we all think you have some issues, and what meaning of cornhole were you talking about? I was stating that you were possibly a good player in the game were you throw bean bags onto the boards. BTDT you truly are disgusting


0

As posted below, never realized it was a game. In regards to your other statement about issues, is that all you got?


0

I know they have used them in the past.


0

You must be a Cornhole player hehe… Beanbags against guns you got an idiot great job SMPD now teach paso pd how to use theirs and we might be able to put these low end wannabes away for good


0

No I don’t swing that way in regards to your first statement but more than support you in your choice of lifestyle.


0

Tell ya what btdt get out from behind your computer, i know it will be hard for you but u need to get away from the internet… Cornhole is a game much like horse shoes but you throw bean bags instead :) get your mind out of the gutter hehe


0

Sorry wasn’t trying to put mind in gutter. NEVER had heard of game till now. When I was younger it ONLY HAD one slang meaning. My bad.


0

It’s an honest question and one asked by many who have not been trained in the self defense use of a firearm or have not attended POST. By now you have read the posts and figured out through the posts what a LEOs training involves. Without going into specifics, the public has been lead by films and pulp fiction for decades that there are such things as ‘warning shots’ and or ‘winging’ a perpetrator. Neither are practiced in the real time life of law enforcement or by citizens as myself who often carry a legal permitted concealed firearm.


You pointed out there are other adjuncts that are used in certain scenarios that are not lethal.. This is true and many work very well without doing permanent physical harm to the alleged perpetrator. We read that in this call, officers had no time to discern the make, the caliber or if it’s a replica. If it looks like a handgun and is held at or towards the officers in a threatening manner after the failure to yield, a decision has to be made to make the scene safe for themselves and the others around the scene. Therefore the action taken has to be immediate , possibly lethal, as there are no others choices available given the situation..


Officers obviously do not want to shoot a person if it is at all possible to avoid it.. It can be a career ending move even if 110% justifiable…. can haunt an officer for the rest of his life. It also has a large ripple effect with the family and friends of the deceased as well as the officers partners and community.


Very fortunate no others were hurt during this event.


0

Jack, thank you for your mature and respectfull responce.


0

There is a problem with the Santa Maria PD–that’s why the Police chief is out. There is also a problem with armed people galore in Santa Maria, a town where almost half the people speak Spanish and a third are from foreign countries.


However, you may not remember that the last Border Patrol agent in Arizona was killed when, armed with a bean bag, he intercepted some drug smugglers with AK 47s (thanks to Janet Retard and Homeland Security policies). He is now dead.


The last two shootings in Santa Maria were suicide by cop episodes IMO. In this case, the gun turned out to be a replica gun, and the guy got out of his car and pointed it at the officers. No one knew it wasn’t a real gun that he had been waving at people most of the day.


Around here, with so many of the criminals armed to the hilt, you would have a hard time getting law enforcement to change to bean bags. Maybe some citizens could try the bean bag approach for self defense and see how it works.


0

“There is also a problem with armed people galore in Santa Maria”?


Are Santa Marians not entitled to defend themselves with firearms?


0

A Quote from the KSBY website:


Santa Maria Police Chief Danny Macagni, who confirms to KSBY he is officially retired from the department says it’s a good feeling. He tells KSBY “I’ll be spending some quality time with my family and a lot of time on my Harley!”


0

At $162,000 per year for the rest of his life, he ought to be spending some “quality time”!


0

Wow, was the guy brandishing his weapon when he stepped out of the vehicle? The article doesn’t mention WHY the officers fired on him. An important part of this story, CCN.


0

danika,


You’ve seemed to answer your own question. When the officers knew beforehand he had a gun, and then he exited his car brandishing said gun, what should the officers have done to protect themselves?


Give the bad guy the opportunity to fire first, and killing one of the officers? Subsequent to a police car chase, it seems as though the criminal may be wanted for something, therefore, the last thing he should have done is exit their car brandishing a gun at the officers!


BANG! The criminal’s game was called because of stupidity and darkness. Subjectively, enough coddling of the criminal element in a situation like this with everything else that is happening in our society. Wild West? Maybe so, but harshly, one less fool and criminal to contend with.


Darwin’s scale of nature moved up a little subsequent to the demise of this criminal.


0

Add more weight to that scale, it’s been reported the gun was a toy or replica gun.


Surreal


0

Suicide?


0

Drugs? Booze? Both?


They’d have to be under the influence of something to attempt a stunt like this *especially* after the events of the last few months. ……….


0

Ok, after reading about what his family has said today, I take it back. It may very well be what slowtime asked. :-( He was a widower with four children, his late wife graduated from SMHS with my eldest daughter. So sad.


0

I point a black toy gun at you when driving by and you would squirt in your pants who cares and he learned his lesson I guarantee he won’t be doing it again


0