A man reportedly attempting to provide homicide investigators with the Chino Police Department evidence relating to a murder was shot and killed yesterday by the officer sent to rendezvous with him less than two blocks from the department’s headquarters.
The identity of the dead man has not been released. According to word that was spreading throughout the city of 95,000, the man had taken possession of a knife he believed had been used in a fatal stabbing/slashing. He made a 9-1-1 call to the department at 3:43 p.m., requesting to speak to a police officer. Concerned about bringing a weapon into the police department headquarters, he requested that officers meet with him at the intersection of Walnut Avenue and 10th Street, which is less than an eighth of a mile from the police department headquarters.
When the police officer arrived at the preset location, the man was there. When he emerged from his vehicle and approached the officer, the officer perceived the subject to be approaching him with a weapon, drew his service firearm and shot the man, fatally.
According to the department, the man had the knife in his hand, openly on display.
After the shooting, that portion of Walnut Avenue closest to the scene of the shooting was temporarily shut down, as was 10th Street north of Walnut, while officers gathered evidence relating to the shooting.
The officer who fired the fatal shot has been placed on administrative leave. The officer has not been identified.
The San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department is handling the investigation of the incident, which has been classified as an officer-involved shooting of an armed civilian. The results of the investigation are to be handed over to the San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office for a determination on the final disposition of the case.
Efforts to obtain from the sheriff’s department information on how far the investigation has proceeded elicited no usable information, including whether there is any blood residue on the knife consistent with a recent fatal stabbing, whether a transcription of the audio recording of the 9-1-1 call has been obtained, and whether investigators have yet had a chance to view any video of the shooting itself.
Chino police officers are outfitted with body cameras, and it is believed that there are multiple video cameras in the area proximate to police headquarters.