SDPD Releases Body Camera Footage Of Officer Killing Man In Mountain View Neighborhood
Speaker 1: 00:00 It was a mental distress call. San Diego police arrived at a house in the mountain view neighborhood, a man 39 year old Jose Alfredo Castro, Gutierrez rushed out the front door and ran it officers in a flash. He was fatally shot. Now video footage from several police body cameras has been released. Joining me to discuss this latest police shooting is KPBS reporter max than Adler max. Welcome to the program. Good to be here. We'll start with who the shooting victim was and why police were called to the home in the first place. Speaker 2: 00:32 39 year old, uh, Jose Alfredo Castro. Gutierrez was a legal permanent resident from Mexico, who is a Mexican citizen. He was working in construction and he was living in a home with rented rooms, uh, late one night and actually early in the morning of October 19th. Uh, people started hearing him in a heightened, emotional state. He was screaming. He was asking for help. He was paranoid. Um, and so both a neighbor outside of the house and somebody in the house called nine one one and told the dispatcher that, you know, this guy was in a lot of trouble and they were worried about him. And in fact, the person who was outside the house said that it sounded like somebody was being tortured. Uh, the dispatcher asked them, would you want ambulance to be sent fire department to be sent or the police to be sent? And basically the person answered the police and that's who came Speaker 1: 01:30 Well, let's hear the audio portion of police officers from the video calling out to the victim shortly after they arrived at the scene. Speaker 3: 01:41 San Diego police come outside. Got it, got it. Alfredo. [inaudible] 41 key. We're making contact. Hey, drop it. Speaker 1: 01:53 And max explained what happened several different weapons were used. Right? Speaker 2: 01:57 Right. So you could hear that he's coming out in the video, he's coming out from the house. Um, it's unclear. He's holding what police leader say was a curtain rod and in a very short chain of events, actually, it all happened at exactly the same time. You had three separate police officers using three separate deterrents. Uh, you have one officer who uses kind of a shotgun like device to shoot a bean bag into mr. Castro. You have another police officer who uses a taser. And then right next to the officer that uses the taser. You have officer Castillo who fires his weapon, killing mr. Castro. So three different things were used for the exact same inciting incident, which was this man running out of a house, screaming, help me Speaker 1: 02:42 And explain the various police officer body cams, what they show and what a security camera on the house shows. And I should say, obviously we're on radio, but this video is posts posted with your story on kpbs.org. But what do they show? Speaker 2: 02:57 Yeah, it shows that this is all in really quick succession, basically within 10 seconds of them deciding to approach the house. You have officers explaining in English and Spanish saying, Hey, calm down, drop it. And as he's running out clearly, um, in, in mental distress and yelling, help me, they shoot him. Speaker 1: 03:18 Now, it's been more than a week since the shooting. How did this a particular video or series of videos I should say, wind up getting released. Speaker 2: 03:27 So the San Diego police department has made an effort in recent months to make sure that body camera footage is released, uh, within a timely manner. Uh, following fatal shootings. Of course, this is expedited when there are shootings that the police department believes, um, were, were appear to be quote unquote justified, where you have an individual who was either pointing a weapon at a police officer, or clearly putting a police officer in danger and, and inciting that, that use of lethal force. This took around 10 days to be released. And that was only after legal representation was found by mr. Castro's family and then several requests from remade by media and their, their counsel to see the video and have that body camera footage released. So it got released because of the, the public pressure, because we do know that San Diego police department has a completely within their ability to release these types of videos, which are edited within a few hours. Speaker 1: 04:26 And the family of this man who died say he was in mental distress. He's one of three people just this week killed by police while in what's being described as mental health, Speaker 2: 04:36 Right? You have protests going on right now after the killing of Walter Wallace jr. In Philadelphia. Uh, this is part of a national trend. Um, according to a study from the, um, treatment advocacy center, people with mental illnesses are 16 times more likely than the overall population they'll be killed by police. Again, that nine 11 call from the neighbor where they're being given a choice by the dispatcher, who to send, um, police, ambulance, or the fire department. Um, this is basically a question that's being asked around the countries who should respond to people in mental health crises. Uh, it, should it be the police or should it be, you know, ambulances or, or people who have training and deescalation and working with people with mental health issues? Because we know that police, um, just don't have that training. Uh, they have to deal with people with mental health issues all the time, but that's just not a priority in terms of what they're being told to do. Speaker 1: 05:33 And that debate is happening here in San Diego is as well. We do have the perk teams here, but we've got a ballot issue of course, on, uh, on police commission and more oversight of the police, which will be coming up next week. And I'm sure this debate will continue now, Eugene Iredale, that's the family's attorney. He concludes this was an unnecessary shooting, but to police and the district attorney's office say at this point right now, they're not saying much, Speaker 2: 05:58 They just said they're going to be looking into it. Um, and that the FBI will also be involved. The district attorney will decide whether to charge people. I mean, something you mentioned is, is the PERT teams for dealing with people in mental health, um, distress. Okay. So I think a big question would be what was their role in this incident and what, what were they dealing with, um, and why weren't they called to the scene? And if they were on the scene, why weren't they the first kind of point of contact here? Another thing that the da will be looking into is that, you know, the da did charge for the first time in recent memory, uh, San Diego law enforcement officer for shooting somebody while in the line of duty. And that was, this was done over the summer when the da charged a Sheriff's deputy who was running away, um, from, from the jail and shot them in the back. Uh, so that was, you know, a particularly egregious example, but it did show a willingness by the district attorney for the first time in a very, very long time to actually charge an on-duty police officer with murder for shooting somebody. Speaker 1: 06:58 Now, the victim, Jose Alfredo Castro Gutierrez was a legal resident of the U S also a Mexican citizen. You've spoken to the Mexican consulate general about this. What did he have to say? Speaker 2: 07:09 Well, he's very concerned because in fact, this was the second shooting of a Mexican citizen in mental distress in, in the course of, of, uh, just over a week at the, uh, Santa Sutra port of entry last Friday, a man was shot by border patrol agents who was also, uh, in his description and mental distress. So one thing that Mexico is really interested in is, you know, they're, they're not one to say that their own policing doesn't have certain issues, but they do view the treatment of people with mental health issues with lethal force as, as extremely troubling. And they are worried that these investigations will not get a fair shake because these people were not United States citizens. So they say they're going to be very much on, uh, on alert to make sure that this is being done fairly and, you know, without prejudice against the individuals, just because they're not us citizens. Speaker 1: 08:02 And we will be looking for follow-up reporting on this fatal shooting. I've been speaking with KPBS reporter, max Ribble and Nadler. Thanks, max. Thank you. Speaker 4: 08:15 Uh,
