Police: Boy, 15, shot in 'suicide by cop' attempt at Santa Rosa park

A 15-year-old Santa Rosa boy was shot and wounded in the foot by a Santa Rosa police officer late Monday in what authorities said was an attempt by the teen to end his life by aiming a pellet gun at an officer and drawing police gunfire.

In an 11:43 p.m. encounter that lasted less than a minute, police who had been called to Coffey Park by the boy ordered him to drop his gun. The boy got down on his knees on a park sidewalk but then “jumped back up” and aimed an airsoft BB gun designed to look like a pistol at an officer, who opened fire, according to police.

The boy’s injuries are not life-threatening, and he is under medical and psychiatric care at a local hospital, Santa Rosa Police Lt. Mike Lazzarini said. The lieutenant said the boy has since told police he had wanted to commit “suicide by cop” and placed the 911 call that brought police to the park in northwest Santa Rosa looking for a man with a gun. He had a handwritten suicide note in his pocket.

“This kid set this scenario up,” Lazzarini said. “It’s tragic that it happened and we’re just thankful he and the officer weren’t killed.”

Police didn’t identify the boy or the two police officers involved, both of whom were placed on administrative leave. The officers were equipped with body cameras that recorded the encounter. Lazzarini said the department would not release the videos to the public.

The shooting in some ways mirrors the 2013 encounter between a Sonoma County deputy sheriff and 13-year-old Andy Lopez, who was fatally shot while walking along Moorland Avenue in southwest Santa Rosa.

Both Lopez and the teen boy in Monday night’s shooting, who was not identified, were holding pellet guns designed to look like real weapons.

And in both cases, the orange tips required on these types of BB guns ­- a feature to distinguish them from the more lethal weapons they’re designed to resemble - were missing.

The biggest difference was the outcome: The deputy fired eight shots at Lopez and hit him seven times, killing him. The officer Monday fired an unspecified number of times, hitting the teen once in the foot.

When asked if the officer had made a tactical decision to shoot the boy in the foot, Lazzarini strongly rejected the idea. He said officers are trained to use guns to defend themselves or others and “stop the threat from advancing.”

“You can’t shoot a moving target like legs, hands and feet. That’s an unrealistic expectation,” Lazzarini said. “You are trained to aim for the center mass.”

The teenager had called 911 at 11:36 p.m. to report a man with a gun at Coffey Park south of Hopper Avenue and described his own clothing to the dispatcher, Lazzarini said.

The boy was holding the pistol-like pellet gun and standing near the streetlight on the sidewalk near the north end of the park when officers in two patrol cars arrived at 11:43 p.m. - one from the south and the other from the north, Lazzarini said.

The officer coming from the north pulled up on Coffey Lane roughly 20 to 30 feet away from a boy who matched a description of the suspect described by the caller. The officer saw the boy was holding a weapon that looked like a pistol, police said. He parked, got out of the patrol car and ordered him to drop the gun, Lazzarini said.

The boy initially got down on his hands and knees, but then “he got right back up with the gun in his hand, pointing it at the officer,” Lazzarini said.

The officer fired multiple shots at the teen, striking him once in the left foot, police said. The boy fell to the ground and both officers approached him and “took him into custody” and to a local hospital.

Lazzarini said brandishing a replica weapon at a police officer is a felony and possible charges against the teen were under investigation.

“We are dealing with a psychological issue that needs to be treated - that is paramount,” Lazzarini said.

Clint Van Zandt, former chief hostage negotiator for the FBI who now runs a Fredericksburg, Va.-based risk and threat assessment group, said in many cases a law enforcement officer responding to such a scene does not know the mental health history of the armed suspect.

Van Zandt, who in the 1980s was supervisory special agent for the National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Va., said the phenomenon of “suicide by cop” is a form of manipulative behavior on the part of the suspect.

“We’re talking about someone who’s made a decision he or she wants to die,” Van Zandt said. “They choose to commit this form of suicide for a number of different reasons.”

Dr. Mark Levy, a forensic psychiatrist and assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at UCSF, said in cases where a suspect has a history of mental illness, it is important the information be provided to responding law enforcement officers.

“The most important thing is history,” he said.

The overwhelming majority of people who are mentally ill are less violent than people in the general population, Levy said. The exception, he said, are acute paranoid schizophrenics and those with a persecutory type of delusional disorder.

Levy pointed out there’s a difference between someone who is armed and experiencing a violent psychotic episode and someone who has chosen the police as the instrument of his or her death.

Levy said involving a police officer in a suicide is an “elaborate” gesture and seldom a random choice or act.

“There’s an inescapable, interpersonal dimension to suicide by cop, where someone says, ‘I’m going to involve somebody else in my death,’” said Levy. “You can’t generalize about what the meaning is, but it is meaningful.”

The boy’s father was assisting in the investigation, police said.

Lazzarini said Santa Rosa detectives are handling the investigation because it wasn’t a fatal shooting, and didn’t fall under criteria that would have triggered the countywide protocol shared by local law enforcement agencies and used to ensure impartiality when investigating in-custody deaths. However, Lazzarini said investigators with the Rohnert Park Public Safety Department and Sonoma County District Attorney’s Office are assisting in the investigation.

Staff Writers Christi Warren and Martin Espinoza contributed to this report. You can reach Staff Writer Julie Johnson at 521-5220 or julie.johnson@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @jjpressdem.