Sacramento officer wounds unarmed man who advanced on police with hand under blanket
An officer shot and injured a man Sunday night in Sacramento’s River District while attempting a felony warrant arrest, police said.
Officers near 16th and A streets shortly after 10:30 p.m. contacted a 42-year-old man “known to have a felony warrant” for probation violation, the Sacramento Police Department said in a news release midday Monday, but the man refused to follow police commands.
The man then “walked away from officers, reached under a tarp and concealed his hands under a blanket,” the Police Department said.
“While his hands were concealed, he began to advance towards officers, telling them to drop their weapons.”
The suspect continued to walk toward officers, according to the news release, and officers backed away from the suspect while continuing to give commands.
One officer then fired their duty weapon and struck the suspect, according to the news release. The department did not specify how many officers responded to the initial incident.
The suspect then fled on foot before being taken into custody two blocks away at 16th and C streets, near John Muir Children’s Park and the Blue Diamond Growers campus in the New Era Park neighborhood.
The Police Department said officers gave medical aid before the man was taken to a hospital by Sacramento Fire Department personnel with non-life-threatening injuries. No officers were injured.
No weapon was located in the “immediate area of the incident,” officials said.
The suspect, who was not identified by police, will be booked into jail following discharge from the hospital for his felony warrant and other charges that have not yet been determined.
Video from the incident will be publicly released by the department within 30 days, in accordance with SB 1421, California’s law enforcement use-of-force law, and city policy.
Several streets in downtown Sacramento including a stretch of 16th Street were closed or blocked for several hours Monday following the shooting, the second by the agency this month. All road closures were lifted before noon, police said.
Officer-involved shootings are typically investigated by the Police Department’s Homicide Unit, Internal Affairs Division and Professional Standards Unit, along with its Force Investigation Team to focus on policy, tactics and training in use of force. The city’s Office of Public Safety Accountability and the Sacramento County District Attorney’s Office are expected to provide oversight by monitoring the investigation, as they have with other shootings involving law enforcement.
Earlier this month, police shot and killed a 75-year-old man who had threatened to kill his longtime partner during a domestic dispute in South Land Park.
Michael Moore died at a hospital several hours after police shot him in the bathroom of his Gilgunn Way home while he attacked the 84-year-old woman with two kitchen knives. Officers called to the home spent several minutes trying to coax the man out of the home before he was seen on video leaving his front door to assault his spouse.
In the July 2 incident, Police Department released the video and audio of the shooting as part of its protocol to release such material within 30 days of a police shooting. They released video from the Gilgunn Way incident on July 11.
Monday’s incident marks the third officer-involved shooting by the agency in 2022. The first incident occurred in April after a man fled police in a vehicle before exchanging firing with them in the unincorporated Fruitridge Pocket neighborhood. The suspect, later arrested and identified as Jose Ricardo Borrego, continued on a police pursuit that ended near a light rail station in Folsom.
This story was originally published July 18, 2022 at 4:07 AM.