By Sean Webby and Mark Gomez
San Jose Mercury News
SAN JOSE, Calif. — For the fifth time this year and the second time since Friday, a San Jose police officer opened fire at a suspect, this time a shirtless man who threatened an officer with a handgun early Monday morning. The man was shot and killed.
After the shooting, police found a car filled with bullet holes. They believe the suspect shot up the car earlier in the morning.
Police declined to identify the dead man, without explanation. But they identified the officer as Jeff Harwell, 39, who has been on the force since 2006.
Police said Monday that they were still looking into the bizarre and fatal early morning confrontation on Hillsdale Avenue that closed a nearby occupational school for the day.
Terry Bowman, Harwell’s lawyer, said the officer did everything he could to get the suspect to drop his weapon.
“The officer remained remarkably calm and collected in this rapidly devolving and dynamic situation,’' said Bowman. “He was extremely conservative in that this suspect had every possible last second to surrender.’'
The last five days in Santa Clara County have been marked with bloodshed. There have been three officer-involved shootings, counting the one on Monday. Since Thursday, there have also been two homicides in San Jose, a triple homicide in Cupertino and a fight between a police officer and a man on Leigh Avenue in San Jose.
Monday, police responded to reports of gunshots near Hillsdale Avenue around 5:30 a.m.
Half an hour later, there were reports of a suspicious man seen with a gun in the same area.
The first officer who arrived encountered a man with a weapon in the 700 block of Hillsdale Avenue near the intersection with Narvaez Avenue.
The suspect was described as wearing shorts, but little else and seemingly talking to himself, according to police.
Officers ordered him to drop his weapon and surrender. The suspect reportedly threatened the officer.
Harwell fired multiple times. He has been placed on routine administrative leave, pending an investigation.
Of the five times officers in San Jose have fired their weapons at suspects this year, two have died.
Last year one suspect was killed in four officer shootings. The year before, a single suspect died in three officer-involved shootings
Saturday, a Santa Clara County sheriff’s deputy shot at a San Jose man near Park Avenue and Sunol Street. The deputy had been on routine patrol when he spotted a suspicious vehicle, which he found had been reported as stolen. When the deputy approached the car, a man behaved in a threatening manner, and the deputy fired several shots at him, San Jose police reported.
The man fled into the San Jose Fire Department training center on Montgomery Street, where he was captured by San Jose police officers.
Thursday, Santa Clara County sheriff’s deputies shot and killed triple homicide suspect Shareef Allman in a Sunnyvale neighborhood. A day earlier, Allman killed three co-workers at a Cupertino quarry and wounded seven others.
Friday, a man wrestled a gun from a San Jose police officer on Leigh Avenue. The gun went off, but neither was hit. Two other police officers fired at the man as he ran away. The first police officer got into his car and ran the man down, hitting him.
On Saturday, two people were shot and killed in an alley in the 800 block of South Third Street near Virginia Street. The two recent San Jose State University students — Eric Kenzo Otokawa and Kristina Lynn Pandula — are the city’s 35th and 36th homicide victims this year.
Copyright 2011 San Jose Mercury News