By Michael McGough
The Sacramento Bee
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Body camera video and 911 audio released this week by the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office show a deputy fatally shooting a man who advanced on his wife and the deputy late last month while wielding a machete and covering his eyes.
The man, identified by the Sacramento County Coroner’s Office as Jaime Naranjo Bautista, 55, was fatally shot the morning of Sept. 28 at a home in the 5400 block of Enrico Boulevard in south Sacramento’s Fruitridge Pocket neighborhood.
The incident began with a 911 call from a woman saying her husband was suicidal and holding a machete.
Video released Tuesday by the Sheriff’s Office shows that the shooting happened less than 30 seconds after the deputy arrived at the home, and that the man began to advance on the deputy immediately upon his arrival.
A woman on the front yard of the property opened the gate to allow the deputy in just before 8:45 a.m., bodycam video shows, and the man emerged seconds later from the front porch of the home with the machete in his hand.
The woman shouted the man’s first name, “Jaime,” as the deputy pushed her aside and told the man to “put it down.”
The man then covered his eyes with one hand while raising the machete up with his other hand, video shows. The deputy repeated his command to drop the weapon, then said “don’t do it” twice.
Video shows the man stabbing the machete into the air at least twice while walking toward the deputy and the woman with his eyes still covered.
The deputy then fired five shots, striking Bautista at least once. The man fell to the ground next to the woman, who had dropped to the ground as Bautista advanced.
According to the Sheriff’s Office, the deputy – a four-year veteran of the department – rendered medical aid to Bautista until Sacramento Metropolitan Fire District personnel arrived and transported him to a hospital. The release did not include video of the deputy giving aid to Bautista.
Bautista was pronounced dead at the hospital, the Sheriff’s Office said in a news release.
No one other than Bautista was injured in the incident, according to the Sheriff’s Office.
Law enforcement recovered the machete, shown in an evidence photo included in the video release to be about two feet long and covered in rust.
During the initial 911 call, Bautista’s wife told a dispatcher that she had tried to “fight (the machete) out of his hand,” according to audio released by the Sheriff’s Office, and that she had exited the house while her husband remained inside alone, still holding the machete.
The woman during the 911 call said her husband had not been diagnosed with any mental health conditions, but that deputies had recently responded for a welfare check after he claimed she was poisoning him. She told the dispatcher that he had been “hallucinating.”
The woman also told the 911 dispatcher that her husband did not have a history of violence, and that there were no firearms in the house.
The woman’s face is blurred in the video.
The deputy involved in the shooting has been placed on paid administrative leave pending an internal investigation by the Sheriff’s Office and independent reviews from the Sacramento County District Attorney’s Office and the inspector general, in accordance with department policy, according to a Sheriff’s Office news release.
Sheriff’s Office spokesman Lt. Rodney Grassmann, in a narrated portion of the video release, said that the involved residence had an external home surveillance camera set up, and that detectives have obtained a signed search warrant to recover additional footage of the incident.
The department’s investigation remains active and in its “early stages,” Grassmann said in the video.
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