SJPD: Officer-involved shootings related to Lundy Ave. homicide
SAN JOSE, Calif. (KGO) -- The San Jose Police Department is investigating a fatal officer-involved shooting that occurred on Kirkhaven Court at Stoneyhaven Way Monday evening. This is the second fatal police shooting in the city in less than 24 hours. Both men shot in these latest shootings are believed to be connected to a homicide that happened Thursday on Lundy Avenue in San Jose.
Sunday night, San Jose police shot and killed a man on Senter Road and Capitol Expressway.
VIDEO: Police say officer-involved shooting suspect reached for gun
In Monday night's shooting, that occurred just before 7 p.m., police say the suspect was pronounced dead at the scene and no one else was injured.
One woman, who may be related to the man shot Monday night, came outside and cried, "They shot and killed my brother."
A man at the scene was placed in handcuffs, but it is unclear how or if that individual was related to the officer-involved shooting.
VIDEO: San Jose police: Two suspects tied to recent homicide
At a news conference held after 11 p.m., San Jose police Sgt. Enrique Garcia said San Jose officers were "surveilling a suspect associated to the homicide that occurred on Lundy Avenue on Aug. 13. As you know, [Sunday] we also had another officer-involved shooting in which there was another suspect that was also associated to that Lundy Avenue homicide."
Garcia then went on to describe part of a surveillance video he saw that captured the Lundy Avenue homicide. He said the video "shows a horrific encounter where three suspects are terrorizing the victim that they eventually killed. The suspects are armed with a handgun, a TEC-9 style assault rifle, and then the third outstanding suspect had another weapon which I'm not going to talk about at this time. So I can't imagine what the victim was going through as they were terrorizing him before they killed him."
Police say the Homicide Unit obtained information that one of the two remaining homicide suspects was about to kill a female on Monday that had information about the homicide.
San Jose police began following the suspect who was in a car with the female that he was allegedly plotting to kill. Police say they think the suspect realized he was being followed by police and tried to evade officers. That's when a short pursuit occurred and the suspect crashed the car he was in on Kirkhaven, got out of the car and began to run away on foot, leaving the female in the car.
Garcia said, "The officer that was behind, exited his car and also ran after the suspect. The suspect now is considered armed and dangerous, he's got a felony warrant for homicide for killing the victim on Aug. 13, on Lundy Avenue. The suspect is running towards an unknown house at the end of the court. The officer is chasing the suspect and the suspect reaches for the waistband area. The officer fires his weapon, shoots the suspect, and he was pronounced dead at the scene. As I mentioned, this is a very complicated case. We still have one outstanding suspect."
Dozens of neighbors came outside and they described what they heard.
Neighbor David Ramirez told ABC7 News he was "just relaxing you know, watching TV, and all of a sudden I hear two gunshots and come outside because I was just wondering what my neighbors came out for and I just seen the police right there with the body."
Ron Cuilla who has lived in the neighborhood for 35 years said, "I've never seen anything quite like this in this neighborhood. It's pretty quiet, not any kind of police activity around here, nothing to this extent for sure."
In total, the San Jose police have shot at suspects four times in the past nine days. This year, there have been eight officer-involved shootings, five of them fatal.
ABC7 News reporter Melanie Woodrow contributed to this report.
UPDATE: Originally police said that the suspect who was shot and killed in San Jose on Monday, August 17, 2015 had reached into his waistband, but clarified at a news conference the next night that he did not have a gun on him and was shot first in the back. "We know that this person is suspected of murdering someone else earlier this week," said Sgt. Enrique Garcia. "So the officer fired at the suspect. When the suspect did not comply with the officer's commands, the suspect turned around and the officer fired again."
