Sheriff’s deputies shot and killed a 17-year-old boy with mental health concerns after he armed himself with a knife and locked himself inside a restroom.
According to San Bernardino County Sheriff Shannon Dicus, the adolescent escaped on Tuesday during his transfer from a hospital where he had received treatment for self-injury to a mental health facility.
The youngster, a foster youth from Hesperia, later turned up at a Victorville residence, where his sisters are in foster care, according to Dicus. Someone at the house called deputies to come arrest him, Dicus said, because he had previously caused issues there.
According to the sheriff, the adolescent, who had a knife, barricaded himself in a toilet for about a half hour before deputies attempted to coax him out. However, when the youngster threatened to kill himself, deputies kicked down the door and attempted to detain him, Dicus stated.
According to the Riverside Press-Enterprise, the teen was holding a knife in both video and still photographs from the interaction. Deputies pepper-sprayed him, and the knife slashed one deputy’s hand, according to the newspaper.
According to Dicus, they backed the teen into a bathtub and shot him. The hospital pronounced him dead.
The death occurred less than a month after San Bernardino deputies shot and killed 15-year-old Ryan Gainer. The autistic boy threatened family members at their Victorville home before chasing a responding deputy with a garden hoe, according to the sheriff’s department.
Dicus stated on Wednesday that on both occasions, deputies were met with violence. He believes that parents should have greater access to mental health resources for their difficult children, so that law enforcement is not the sole choice in times of crisis.
“My record as sheriff for the last several years is that I have championed having a better mental health system,” he stated. “The corrections environment and our public environment have been challenged a number of times where the only mental health resource we have in our community is law enforcement, and that’s the only 24/7 resource that we have.”
The cases also come after law enforcement surveillance recorded the terrible moment a 15-year-old girl who had been reported as a kidnapping victim was fatally shot in California.
A newly released video shows the September 2022 event in which San Bernadino County Sheriff’s Department deputies attempted to rescue Savannah Graziano, who was ultimately shot and killed.
