KERN COUNTY, Calif. — The Kern County Sheriff’s Office released body camera video showing an officer-involved shooting of a man who ran at an deputy with a sword.
The Aug. 3 incident began when a deputy responded to a call for a peace disturbance. When he arrived on the scene, the deputy encountered the caller inside a yard hemmed in by a wire fence.
| WEBINAR: Building real-time intel workflows that work
Body camera footage showed the deputy speaking with the man, who had called to report someone had woken him up late the previous night. He told the deputy on scene that a driver stopped outside his home every night to rev their engine.
“I’m really going to f*** them up,” the man had told dispatchers in 911 call audio released alongside the body camera video.
As the deputy spoke with the man about how to proceed with his complaint, the man became increasingly agitated, insisting he would punch the driver, who lived in the same neighborhood. He also became upset when he implied he would like to get a restraining order on the driver, and the deputy told him he could not.
He then suddenly walked back into the home.
“I’ll be back! Hold the gun. I’m going to go get my sword now,” the man stated as he walked back into the home. “I am going to go take care of it.”
The deputy yelled to the man that he "[couldn’t] do that.”
“I’m tired of him waking me up ... I’m going to go kill him now,” the man said.
The deputy radioed for assistance after the man emerged with a sword.
“Go ahead and shoot me,” the man can be heard saying as he walked behind the fence with the sword raised.
The man then climbed over the fence as the deputy ordered him to stop and drop the sword. He instead ran toward the deputy with the sword raised. He also attempted to open the cruiser’s driver’s side door as he approached.
The deputy walked backward while ordering the man to drop the sword. The man continued to pace toward the deputy, shouting, “Kill me!”
The deputy then fired several shots, striking the man.
Once the man complied with orders to throw the sword away, the deputy and additional responding deputies rendered aid to the suspect.
The man was charged with assault with a deadly weapon on a peace officer, resisting a peace officer using force, exhibiting a deadly weapon at a peace officer to resist arrest and resisting, obstructing or delaying a peace officer in the performance of their duties.
