San Diego police officers responding to a report of a man with a gun at an elementary school in City Heights Tuesday morning fatally shot the suspect, a police spokesperson said.
The state’s Department of Justice announced it will investigate and review the shooting under a law requiring it to step in when police kill a person considered not to have been armed with a deadly weapon.
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Few details were immediately available about the shooting, which occurred in the Colina del Sol neighborhood near Fay Elementary School, authorities said.
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According to San Diego police, someone called 911 shortly before 6:45 a.m. to report seeing a man with a gun on the ground near him at the school, located on 52nd Street just north of University Avenue. The man, described as being in his 40s, also reportedly had a knife in his hands, said police spokesperson Lt. Travis Easter.
When officers showed up, the man ran, said police Officer Sarah Foster.
He was contacted a short distance away, on Orange Avenue, where officers tried to de-escalate the situation, including deploying beanbags and a police dog, Easter said.
But those efforts were unsuccessful, and officers ended up fatally shooting the suspect, he said. The man’s name was not released Tuesday.
Easter said he did not know if the man was armed when officers contacted him on Orange Avenue.
No officers were injured in the incident.
A San Diego Unified School District spokesperson said a staffer had spotted a person on the elementary school campus and noted that they had something in their hand. The person was shooed off the grounds. The campus — which was open for a before-school program at the time — was placed on lockdown, and police were called. The school later reopened and operated as normal.
In announcing it would take over the investigation, the state DOJ said its shooting investigation team had been assigned and that the case would be turned over to its special prosecution section for review once the investigation was completed. A state law in effect since 2021 calls for the state to investigate all incidents of police shootings that result in the death of an unarmed person.
Guns and knives are considered deadly weapons, for example. Guidance issued by the state DOJ indicates BB guns are considered deadly weapons but replica firearms are not.
The case marks at least the second time the state Department of Justice has investigated a shooting involving San Diego police. It is also investigating the death of John Ray Romero, 58, who had been holding what appeared to be a real gun to his head during a 2022 encounter in City Heights. The case remains under investigation.
Late last month, the state said it was taking over the investigation after Escondido police shot and killed a woman following a pursuit that ended in a crash and confrontation on southbound state Route 163 near its intersection with Interstate 15 in Miramar.