Man shot by Petaluma police dies from injuries

A San Rafael man shot by Petaluma police Tuesday following a standoff at a Petaluma apartment complex died Wednesday night from his injuries.

He was identified Thursday as Luis Alberto Garcia-Vara, 24.

Five Petaluma police officers fired 16 rounds at Garcia-Vara after he brandished a gun at them following negotiations for him to surrender, a Petaluma police spokesman said. Garcia-Vara died at about 10 p.m., according to the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office.

The sheriff’s office is investigating the incident, along with the Rohnert Park Department of Public Safety and the county’s District Attorney’s Office, per countywide fatal incident protocols.

An independent forensic pathologist will conduct an autopsy to determine Garcia-Vara’s cause of death.

Police were initially dispatched Tuesday afternoon to The Vineyard complex, just south of Casa Grande High School, on a report of a domestic dispute. A caller said a man was making suicidal threats and acting distraught before police arrived.

During what became a more than hourlong back-and-forth between Garcia-Vara and police, armed officers pleaded with him to keep his hands off a firearm resting between his legs as he sat on the ground, according to an eyewitness. At 1:50 p.m., police said, Garcia-Vara appeared to check the weapon and reload it before pointing it toward them, which caused them to open fire.

Police have not disclosed the type of gun Garcia-Vargas brandished.

The incident is the Petaluma Police Department’s first officer-involved shooting since October 2005, when five officers shot and killed a 72-year-old man wanted in Sacramento County on suspicion of molesting his two young stepdaughters. After a car chase, James Anthony Decosta emerged from his vehicle at Dynamic Street near McDowell Boulevard and pointed a loaded semi-automatic pistol at officers, who fired 42 rounds, hitting him 27 times.

A Santa Rosa police and Sonoma County District Attorney’s Office investigation later cleared the officers, ruling the shooting justifiable.