By Mark Gomez and Robert Salonga
San Jose Mercury News
SAN JOSE, Calif. — Police shot and killed a homicide suspect they say reached for a gun Sunday night at a strip mall on Senter Road, according to authorities.
Officers were in the area investigating a recent homicide when they confronted a suspect outside a laundromat in a strip mall, according to a law enforcement source. The suspect reached for a handgun and two officers fired their duty weapons, striking the suspect, according to Sgt. Enrique Garcia.
The man shot and killed by San Jose police on Sunday night was the primary suspect in the shooting death of Christopher Wrenn, who was found with fatal wounds Thursday morning in an office complex on Lundy Avenue, according to a source familiar with the investigation. The officers who shot and killed the suspect were members of the police department’s covert response unit, according to the source. Police recovered a gun in the suspect’s possession.
It marks the third time in eight days San Jose police officers have fired shots at suspects. In two of those instances, the suspects were killed by police. In the third, the suspect took his own life.
Also Saturday a Sunnyvale police officer shot and killed a male suspect. Sunnyvale police say a gun was located near the suspect’s body and another firearm in a backpack he was carrying.
The most recent shooting occurred Sunday at 10:10 p.m. when officers conducting a follow-up investigation contacted a male suspect in a strip mall located in the 3100 block of Senter Road, according to Garcia. The man reached for a handgun and two officers fired their duty weapons, Garcia said.
The man died at the scene.
No other injuries were reported.
Police did not immediately say what officers were investigating prior to the shooting, or what crime the man was suspected of committing.
There have been seven officer-involved shootings in San Jose this year, four of them fatal. Five such shootings — two fatal — were recorded in all of 2014.
On Aug. 9, San Jose police shot and killed a parolee suspected of stabbing another man in East San Jose. Police spotted the suspect and two officers in an unmarked police car with the department’s specialized METRO unit pulled up to him, with one officer getting out to confront him. The suspect — a man on parole for attempted second-degree murder — broke into a run, with the officer outside giving chase while his partner followed in his car.
Residents of the quiet inlet of two-story tract homes told this newspaper they watched as a man ran down Packing from the south end of the street, with both officers trailing him and the car eventually cutting off his path.
Officers got out and confronted the man. Witnesses said the man raised his arm and yelled obscenities at the officers.
Police said that “fearing for their safety and the safety of the public,” officers opened fire and wounded the man, who died a short time later.
On Aug. 10 at 12:10 a.m., a woman reported that her brother showed up drunk with a gun to her home in the 1300 block of San Marcos Drive in North San Jose and threatened to hurt himself.
Police said two responding patrol officers “observed a male with a shotgun” and that the man cocked the weapon and threatened the officers. They opened fire but did not hit the suspect, who reportedly dropped the shotgun and retreated into the house.
Almost immediately, officers heard what they thought was a gunshot from the back of the house, according to police. The man died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Saturday afternoon, a Sunnyvale police officer shot and killed a man in a commercial area half a mile southeast of Moffett Field.
Police said they recovered a handgun next to the body of the deceased suspect. A second suspect fled and was not captured.
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