CSLEA’s response to suit against law enforcement officers and departments responding to numerous 911 calls for protection from armed subject threatening others

It is not without thoughtful consideration for a grieving family that the California Statewide Law Enforcement Association (CSLEA) responds to what it views as a frivolous lawsuit recently filed over an already determined justified shooting involving a California State Parks ranger and a man armed with a knife, that happened more than 15 months ago in Placer County on January 26, 2024.

The suit fails to acknowledge that it is a law enforcement officer’s sworn duty to respond to dangerous situations in an effort to protect the public from harm and from people exhibiting threatening behavior.   It is also an officer’s right to defend him or herself from actions that threaten his or her life. 

The subject who tragically lost his life that morning had not only been witnessed taking a vehicle that was not his own at knifepoint, but also driving in a very reckless manner that jeopardized the safety of the public as he fled from pursuing law enforcement officers.

In a deadly situation that unfolded in mere seconds, a State Parks peace officer was suddenly confronted and trapped by a subject armed with a knife.  With this immediate threat to life, there were no minutes for words to be spoken, no seconds for de-escalation, just self-preservation of life.  To suggest that non-lethal alternatives were an option as an armed perpetrator had closed in on, and trapped, an officer is simply absurd. 

The suit claims the State Parks ranger should have known the subject’s history of mental illness.  The ranger had no way of knowing the subject’s mental health history nor would it have mattered in this life-threatening violent encounter.  

The law enforcement officers who responded to the 911 calls involving the subject’s witnessed reckless driving of a stolen vehicle intervened to prevent what could have ended in a fatal accident, had they not, there would have been serious questions about liability for the officers’ failure to act.

The Placer County District Attorney’s office thoroughly investigated the use of lethal force and concluded the officer’s actions to save his own life were indeed justified.  This lawsuit is insulting to the brave law enforcement officers who placed their own lives in jeopardy to safeguard the safety of the public.  It is an unfortunate circumstance where officers are all too often thrust into a subject’s mental health episode with the unrealistic expectation the officers will be able to talk the subject down from the threat he or she is posing.  It is the same mindset that some have who believe officers should be able to shoot an armed subject in the leg to disarm them. 

After enduring the stress of having his own life jeopardized, and the trauma that follows a split-second, necessary action to survive, this ranger must deal with the distraction of an unnecessary lawsuit questioning his, already determined to be justified, actions. 

Hopefully this civil suit, filed 15 months after the fact, and by a relatively inexperienced lawyer who has a primary practice in criminal defense, will be dismissed by the court.  Experienced civil rights attorneys would recognize that there was no wrongdoing by law enforcement in this very unfortunate and unforeseen set of circumstances, and would not tarnish their reputation with this frivolous suit.