Pittsburg Police Release Video, Details Surrounding March 18 Officer-Involved Shooting
PITTSBURG (CBS SF) -- Investigators have released the identity of the 28-year-old Pittsburg man who was wounded and the body-cam video of a March 18 officer-involved shooting.
On the video, the officers can be clearly heard trying to get Blake Hernandez to surrender after he fired shots inside his family home.
When a shot rang out aimed at the police armor vehicle, Police Corporal Kyle Dickson returned fire, wounding Hernandez.
Caution: Video contains graphic images and language https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8TO-PP8ZYU
The incident began when officers responded to a home in the 1300 block of Redwood Street just before 11:30 p.m. after an elderly woman called dispatch to report her adult son had a rifle, had taken it outside and fired several rounds.
Hernandez's mother then informed dispatch that her son had walked back inside the house, but still had the rifle with him. She told police that she and her husband were hiding in their bedroom within the home.
As officers arrived in the neighborhood, they heard a rifle shot that appeared to be coming from the house. Officers were able to contact the elderly couple inside the house and get them out without their son knowing.
The officers used the department's armored transport vehicle that had arrived on scene to approach the front of the home. Dickson was positioned through the top of the vehicle's roof.
Officers then saw the front porch light of the house turn off and Hernandez walk outside with the rifle. An officer yelled for Hernandez to show him his hands, but he then pointed the rifle towards the officers in the vehicle and fired the rifle toward them.
Dickson fired one round from his service rifle in response, hitting the man in the upper torso. Hernandez walked back inside the house and out of the officer's view. Within a few minutes, he called 911 and told the dispatcher he had been shot.
He was instructed to go back outside without the rifle, which he did.
Hernandez was taken to the hospital and was expected to survive.
The Contra Costa County Officer Involved Incident Protocol has been enacted and the District Attorney's Office will be completing an independent investigation into this incident.
The Pittsburg police department's independent outside investigator is also conducting an independent investigation of the incident.
