A police officer fired a gun at a man wielding a knife inside an
apartment building Tuesday night in this city’s first
officer-involved shooting in roughly four years.
By Lori Stuenkel
Gilroy – A police officer fired a gun at a man wielding a knife inside an apartment building Tuesday night in this city’s first officer-involved shooting in roughly four years.
The officer missed one shot at a range of fewer than 15 feet, but another officer subdued the suspect with one pepper-ball round to the chest, and additional rounds fired into the apartment, police said.
Louis Miranda, 41, was upset about a recent break-up with his wife and separation from his children, his mother said Wednesday. On Tuesday night about 9:16pm, he was alone in her residence, apartment No. 7 at Park View Apartments, 181 Pierce St. His sister, a Hollister resident, called police and said her brother was trying to commit suicide. Following a half-hour stand-off with police, Miranda was taken into custody and treated at Saint Louise Regional Hospital for self-inflicted cuts before police booked him into Santa Clara County jail on suspicion of four counts of assault with a deadly weapon against peace officers. He remains in custody and is scheduled to be arraigned Friday at 9am in San Martin.
The four officers involved in his arrest – whose names the department would not release Wednesday – are on administrative leave for at least 24 hours pending an investigation.
When police arrived at the scene Tuesday, they made verbal contact with Miranda on the ground floor of the two-story apartment, but he refused to open the door, they said.
The stand-off lasted about 30 minutes, Sgt. Wes Stanford said. At one point, Miranda told the officers he was going to send out his 5-year-old daughter, but no one exited the apartment. Miranda also was heard yelling at someone to come downstairs, although police found no one else during a later search.
Officers continued to ask Miranda to exit the apartment, but he refused.
All available Gilroy Police Department officers – at least one sergeant and six officers – responded to the scene, located on the corner of Church Street, across the street from Las Animas Veteran’s Park. Units with the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office and the California Highway Patrol responded to help with additional calls in the city, and establish a perimeter, Stanford said. Traffic was blocked along Pierce Street, between Monterey and Church, and on Church, between Mantelli Drive and Welburn Avenue.
A woman who lives in the apartment next door returned home about 10pm Tuesday, but was not immediately allowed inside the building. Theirs and about six other apartments face Pierce Street, with hedge-lined walkways leading to the front doors.
“We came back and the whole street was closed off,” Margie Morelos said. “They had SWAT all over, they had shields and everything.”
Although officers were deployed with rifles, the department’s actual SWAT team, the Special Operations Group did not get to the scene before the incident was resolved, Stanford said.
Officers obtained a key to the apartment from a building manager and four officers stormed the front door. Miranda confronted the officers with a knife, police said.
An officer fired a gun at Miranda one time as the man came at them, missing him. Another fired a pepper-ball launcher, considered a “less-lethal” weapon. Similar to a paintball gun, it projects small balls containing a pepper powder, with effects similar to pepper spray. Miranda was struck in the chest, and at least one other pepper-ball round was fired into the apartment.
According to police, Miranda retreated farther into the apartment and still would not comply with the officers’ orders. After a few minutes, however, he put down the knife and surrendered.
Stanford would not say how long the officer who fired the gun has been at the department, but said the officer is off probation, a one-and-a-half-year period.
“I can’t really get into what happened inside the apartment,” Stanford said. “It’s still under investigation.”
Although Miranda did not have a gun, the shooting appears to be within GPD policy, Stanford said.
“We can use lethal force to defend ourselves against death or great bodily injury, or to protect somebody else against death or great bodily injury,” he said.
As is standard in officer-involved shootings, the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office was notified Tuesday night, and will conduct its own investigation into the incident.
The last officer-involved shooting occurred after police chased a wrong-way driver on U.S. Highway 101, Stanford said. Officers forced the man to the side of the freeway, when he then tried to hit police with his car.
