By Alan Gathright, San Francisco Chronicle
San Jose’s independent police auditor said Monday she is concerned as to why the department’s new electric stun guns failed to immobilize suspects in two recent confrontations that ended with officers fatally shooting the attackers.
Every San Jose police officer was equipped with a Taser gun last spring, and “in the last two incidents ... something went wrong,” said Independent Police Auditor Teresa Guerrero-Daley. “We don’t know if it was error from the officer not using it properly or if the equipment just didn’t function the way it should.”
Tasers use compressed gas to emit a 50,000-volt blast.
The most recent incident occurred Sunday when a patrol officer identified as Donald Guess shot a Bosnian immigrant to death. The shooting occurred after the man, identified as Zaim Bojcic, attacked Guess while he was investigating a complaint that Bojcic had repeatedly refused to obey a smoking ban outside a Starbucks coffee shop.
Police said Guess, a nine-year veteran, twice fired his Taser at Bojcic, a man with history of mental problems, but the stun gun appeared only to slow the charging suspect.
In an account disputed by some witnesses, police said Bojcic threw a chair at the officer, but missed. The suspect then charged Guess, punching and kicking the retreating officer who then fired several shots and killed the man.
On Aug. 12, San Jose police shot to death a knife-wielding shoplifting suspect after the man allegedly shrugged off two Taser hits.
The San Jose department invested $780,000 to equip all 800 patrol officers in April, largely in response to public outcry over the fatal police shooting in 2003 of a distraught Vietnamese woman who police said threatened officers with a large, Asian-style vegetable peeler.
On Monday, two witnesses to Bojcic’s shooting accused Guess of fueling the Sunday afternoon confrontation by grabbing Bojcic after he refused an order to stand up. Bojcic, who walked with a limp, told the officer his leg hurt, according to the witnesses, who said they were acquaintances of Bojcic.
One of the witnesses, who identified himself only as Naser, saying he feared retribution for speaking out, and another man, who called himself Mustafa, said when the officer grabbed Bojcic by the arm, the suspect jumped up, recoiling in fear, and repeatedly shouted: “Don’t touch me.” He picked up a metal chair and held it to his side.
Guess told investigators that he fired the Taser after the man ignored his order to drop the chair, which Guess said Bojcic had raised over his head.
After briefly being stunned by the Taser, police said Bojcic threw the chair, missing Guess. Bojcic, by all accounts, then charged the retreating officer, punching and kicking him. After a second Taser blast failed to stop the assailant, the officer fired about three or four shots with his handgun, according to witnesses.
Both witnesses questioned why the officer didn’t simply call for backup. Naser insisted the man hadn’t thrown the chair, just reflexively shoved it away as he doubled over in response to being shocked.
San Jose police spokesman Sgt. Steve Dixon said throwing a chair is considered assault with a weapon. And the man’s punching-kicking assault left Guess with cuts and bruises to his head and upper body and a possible concussion.
But Dixon declined to respond to every allegation by witnesses, saying police have to maintain the integrity and objectivity of their investigation. Like all police shootings, this one will be independently reviewed by the Santa Clara County district attorney and the county’s criminal grand jury.