As the motorcyclist reached speeds of nearly 150 miles an hour, tailed by a phalanx of police cars on the 210 Freeway, he was putting distance between himself and the home where, according to authorities, he had just shot and killed a sheriff’s deputy.
With viewers watching on live television Monday afternoon, he easily evaded a motorcycle officer who tried to stop him. He appeared to lift both hands off the handlebars as he pulled the slide back on a gun.
His attempt at a quick escape ended when he plowed into a gray Toyota Camry, flipping over the front of his bike and launching at least 10 feet in the air.
It quickly emerged that the driver of the Camry was a San Bernardino County narcotics deputy who was off-duty when the pursuit started, put himself back on duty and deliberately swerved into the motorcyclist, later identified as 47-year-old Angelo Jose Saldivar.
Saldivar was captured by television cameras sitting up on the pavement before being airlifted to a hospital, where he was in stable condition Tuesday. He is expected to be charged in the coming days in the death of San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Deputy Andrew Nunez, 28, who had worked for the department for six years and leaves behind a 2-year-old daughter and a pregnant wife.
Three policing experts told The Times that the deputy who ended the pursuit was likely justified in using deadly force because the motorcyclist was a suspect in a homicide and posed a threat to the public.
“In this case, they could have shot or used whatever means necessary to prevent further injury or loss of life without harming others,” said Greg Meyer, a use of force expert and a former captain with the Los Angeles Police Department.
It’s not clear how the deputy got involved in the pursuit or when he notified the department he was back on duty. Many law enforcement officers carry their handheld radios off-duty and turn them on if there’s police activity nearby, Meyer said.
Sheriff’s officials have not identified the deputy and declined to make him available for interviews on Tuesday.
Nunez was among the deputies who responded to a domestic violence call at 12:37 p.m. at a condominium on Hollyhock Drive in Rancho Cucamonga, where a man with gun was reportedly threatening a woman.
When deputies arrived, Saldivar immediately opened fire and struck Nunez in the head, killing him, according to sheriff’s officials.
Sheriff’s officials did not provide more information on Tuesday about the domestic violence call that brought deputies to the condominium. San Bernardino County Superior Court records show that Saldivar and his wife finalized a divorce in August.
As deputies rendered aid to Nunez, Saldivar fled on a motorcycle, San Bernardino County Sheriff Shannon Dicus said.
He sped east on the 210 Freeway into Upland before smashing into the Camry near Campus Avenue, authorities said.
Ed Obayashi, a Modoc County sheriff’s deputy and legal advisor to police agencies, said that while it’s “highly unusual” for an off-duty deputy to intervene in a high-speed chase, his actions likely fall within established legal precedent.
In April 2007, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of a deputy in Georgia who terminated a high-speed pursuit by pushing his bumper against the back of the other car, causing it to drive off the road and crash. The suspect, who was left a quadriplegic, sued, alleging that excessive force had deprived him of his Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable seizure.
The justices held that the man’s flight from police created a substantial and immediate risk of serious physical injury to others and that the deputy’s attempt to terminate the chase was objectively reasonable.
“Deadly force is appropriate when the subject presents an imminent threat of death or great bodily harm to officers or others, and the fact that his subject had already shot an officer and was fleeing in a way that endangered other motorists is likely to meet that standard,” Seth Stoughton, a University of South Carolina law professor and former Florida police officer, said of the San Bernardino County deputy’s actions.
A sheriff’s spokesperson did not know whether the department is conducting a use of force investigation. Obayashi predicted that the deputy’s actions would be found to be within department policy.
“He just shot a cop, and it is reasonable to assume he will shoot others, including pursuing officers,” Obayashi said. “No one is going to lose sleep over what happened here at conclusion of this chase, given what had unfolded before.”
On Monday night, law enforcement officers and firefighters gathered outside Arrowhead Regional Medical Center to salute Nunez’s body as it was carried out of the building. A motorcade escorted the body to the San Bernardino County coroner’s office.
“We’re embedded in sorrow,” Dicus said at a news conference earlier that day. “Unfortunately for our department, this has happened way too often.”
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