"The community is upset": Unanswered questions remain after officer-involved shooting in Stockton
STOCKTON (CBS13) -- An officer-involved shooting has Stockton residents on edge.
"The community is upset about that," Marlon Marcum said, before adding, "209, you got to do better man."
Marcum lives near Hammer Lane and witnessed the scene unfold Sunday night.
"I come out here and I see a guy, they say he's waving a gun," he said. "I don't see him waving no gun."
Around 7:45 p.m. on Sunday night, Stockton police were called to the Hammer Lane area after calls about a man with a firearm. The suspect was then shot by police and pronounced dead at the scene. A firearm was located on his person.
"He was armed with a firearm as the officers arrived on scene," says Stockton police spokesman Omar Edhah. "During that encounter, the officer-involved shooting occurred. Our preliminary investigation still stands as far as no shots were fired at our officers."
The Stockton Police Department has not released the suspect's name but Marcum says he was known in the community.
"I come here for Backwoods all the time and I see him out here, and like I said, he's harmless," he explained.
As CBS13 was interviewing Marcum, another resident drove up and said the same thing.
"Every day, we would see him at this gas station," that resident said from her window before continuing to drive. "He was not a threat."
With the investigation underway, there are still unanswered questions -- including what prompted the officers to fire on the victim.
"There's no fine details as to his actions at that point, but we do know that he was armed with a firearm and there was a firearm with him when he was deceased," Edhah explained.
The California Highway Patrol initially stated that the suspect had fired on officers before correcting their reporting on Monday. They say an abandoned vehicle was found near the scene of the shooting and say the vehicle matches the description of a car involved in a shooting in Sacramento County and another in San Joaquin County. But it is currently unclear if the silver vehicle found near the scene belongs to the suspect.
After a summer crime wave in Stockton has already gripped the area in a perpetual state of unease, residents want answers about how a call for a man with a firearm ended in death.
"You got tasers," Marcum said. "You got all this other stuff, man, you don't got to use that kind of force on people. He didn't deserve that."