State Attorney General Will Investigate Latest Oxnard PD Fatal Officer Involved Shooting
Wednesday May 17, 2023
(Photos from video released by OPD)
(A WARNING THE VIDEO CAN BE DIFFICULT TO WATCH AND VIEWER DISCRETION IS ADVISED)
Here is a link to the YouTube video of the incident plus other information https://youtu.be/rz2_jIvHBOM
Updated--California Attorney General Rob Bonta says that his office is going to conduct their own investigation into the fatal officer involved shooting of 24-year-old Michael Owens on the second floor of a two story apartment building in the 200 block of East Seventh Street in Oxnard on the night of April 28th of this year.
The Attorney General says his office is conducting the investigation based on Assembly Bill 1506 which gives it the authority to conduct such investigations when it involves the death of an "unarmed citizen".
But Oxnard police have said that Owens was armed with a knife at the time of the incident.
However, the Attorney General says that while his office initially believed the shooting did not come under the criteria of AB 1506, "A closer analysis of the incident" indicated that it does.
That would seem to imply that the Attorney General's office has questions about whether Owens at some point in the incident might not have had control of the knife.
Oxnard Police Chief Jason Benites said in a statement they welcome the Attorney General's review of the incident and will fully cooperate.
There had been two earlier fatal officer involved shootings in Oxnard this year that the Attorney General's Office did not indicate they would review under AB 1506.
Below is our story about the OPD's critical incident report about the shooting released 11 days after it happened...
MAY 9TH STORY--Oxnard police Tuesday released more details and videos of the latest officer involved shooting in that city, the third this year.
It happened at 12:15 AM on the morning of Friday, April 28th outside an apartment building in the 200 block of East Seventh Street east of Oxnard Boulevard.
Firefighters and EMS personnel had requested police because a patient, 24-year-old Michael Owens, was hallucinating and cutting himself with a knife.
Owens had gone into a second floor communal restroom.
Officer Manuel Garcia, a five-year-veteran of the department who was never involved in a shooting before, was the first officer to arrive on scene.
The video shows that as the officer took up a position at the top of stairs and tried to make verbal contact with Owens, Owens came out of the restroom, shirtless and armed with a knife.
He advanced towards the officer despite the officer's commands to stop and the officer shoots him.
Owens went down but then got up and attacked the officer and the officer then fired again and Owens went down again and was given emergency medical aid.
Owens was taken to VCMC where he died the next day.
Officer Garcia was not injured.
The video in what's called the "Critical Incident Community Briefing" report comes from Officer Garcia's body worn camera and from a nearby security camera.
The police also released a picture of the knife that Owens had.
An officer involved shooting prompts three different investigations that are still ongoing.
One is an administrative review to determine if the shooting was within department police, another is a homicide investigation done by the department major crimes unit, and the third is a review by the DA's office.
The two earlier officer involved shootings in Oxnard this year involved a man who was killed after advancing on officers while holding a large metal pole, and the other a man who was killed when he advanced on officers while holding a knife.
In both of those incidents, less-lethal methods were used before the use of deadly force.
No officers were hurt.