Man locked out of his own house, shot and killed as burgler by police

[Liberal_in_LA]

facts are weird in this one...as if the cops are trying to paint a picture of the guy after he's dead, 1. that he didn't really live in the home, 2. that he was combative, 3. that he had a gun.

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Sheriff: Man killed by deputies in own home after neighbor's burglary call in Riverside County
By Associated Press

February 18, 2010 | 12:02 p.m.

MORENO VALLEY, Calif. (AP) — Riverside County sheriff's deputies who killed a man in his home thought they were confronting a burglary suspect, a homicide detective said Thursday.

Reports showed at least 17 shots were fired in the house where Jose Ruiz was killed on Feb. 8.

Homicide Lt. Terry Hudson told The Associated Press a handgun was found in the possession of Ruiz but declined to say if it had been fired during the confrontation. No deputies were hurt.

Cynthia Francia claimed her husband locked himself out of the home where five children also live and had gone in through the back before the shooting.

"I can't really say I'm angry. I'm just angry I can't get the facts," Francia told the Riverside Press-Enterprise. "I know I have to bury my husband and can't see him because of what they did to him."

Francia said her 13-year-old daughter heard the gunshots that killed her stepfather after she was removed from the home by deputies.

Deputies went to the home shortly before 3 p.m. after a neighbor reported a possible burglary, Hudson said.

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Francia said Ruiz had left her a message earlier in the day saying he was unable to get into the home. She told investigators he lost the keys.

Francia said her husband lived at the home, but the sheriff's office only acknowledged he lived there at one time.

"There may have been a slight separation. ... He may have not been living there full-time," Hudson said.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/wire/sns-ap-us-husband-shot,0,3696990.story moderated and will not appear until they have been reviewed by Los Angeles Times staff.

[vadawg]

1. not enough info to really say what happened here, we ddont know if he had a gun, if he drew the gun

etc etc, just not enough info to draw any real conclusions, sad though for the kids and everybody involved...

[immoderate]

3. Well, if he attacked the police, we'd have heard that.

Burglary suspect (not crazed gunman) is dead. Does not sound good. Somebody screwed up.

--imm

[vadawg]

4. yup could be, but i got no idea about this one, just not enough info

and who knows what the real facts are at this time..

[Flaneur]

18. This sounds like total cover your ass police bullshit:

"The deputies discovered Ruiz hiding in a bedroom and shot him when he physically resisted, Hudson said. Ruiz died at the scene."

The man is in his own home. Why would he physically resist? Why would he be hiding? Why didn't they use their ever-handy TASERs for his physical resistance?

Too bad Ruiz isn't alive to tell his side of the story.

Yeah, not enough information. Let's just wait for the grand jury to no-bill the killer cops like they always do.

[vadawg]

19. top of my head hypothetically, if he had a gun then you dont use the taser

its straight to lethal force, no idea why he was hiding but the cops were respondig to a burgarly call so they got to presume anyone in the house is suspect until checked and if and a big if he had a gun who knows what he did with it, hell im a cop and if i heard someone in my house i would get my gun and it could be me getting shot by responding deputies if i didnt know who was there..

[Name removed]

23. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Kolesar]

2. California cops have a bad reputation

They would beat up motorcyclists for no reason
Then there was the Rodney King story

[EFerrari]

9. CA is a huge place and it's not really possible to generalize about our LEOs.

We have the whole array.

[Kolesar]

13. Hells Angels

By Hunter S. Thompson

[vadawg]

15. rofl yeah like hells angels are just innocently going about their business

you do realise that they actually revel in their outlaw image and being 1 percenters....

[Kolesar]

29. Thompson documents how orthodontists and lawyers were harassed by California cops

who rather remind me of the thugs from Grapes of Wrath

[SoCalDem]

5. Shades of the Boston incident..only deadly..n/t

[howard112211]

6. I wonder whether Jose Ruiz had been mistaken for a burgler ...

if he was a a "John Smith"

[EFerrari]

7. *THIS* is why I was grateful Skip Gates wasn't killed last summer.

Residing while brown.

[HipChick]

31. +100

[appleannie1]

8. If he fired at police they would say "officers returned fire". They are in CYA mode

[Blue_Tires]

10. wasn't there a similar case in Arizona a couple of years back?

Guy calls 911 to report a burglar in his house, and the police come and shoot HIM, or something?

[EFerrari]

11. I remember that but not the state. Maybe AZ. n/t

[JonLP24]

12. This isn't probably what you're talking about

but between 2002-2004 in Mesa the police were called to a reported burglary about 4-5 blocks south of me. The robbers were actually there but left by the time the police showed up then mistakenly shot the person that owned the apartment. It was actually a time when Mesa Police shot 3 people in a period of 5 days. I think 1 was certainly justified and the other 2 not so much but it was so long ago to probably find a specific link. The reason why I don't this is what you were referring to is because it was at least 6 years ago and it wasn't big news at the time it happened. Also I'd very surprised if this was the only incident like this to happen.

[EFerrari]

14. The one I remember involved a shooting in a bathroom, iirc. n/t

[Blue_Tires]

27. found it: this is what i was talking about

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=139x6519

[vadawg]

17. yeah the problem is people who dont have a lot of interaction with the police do dumb stuff

the bad guys either stand with their arms straight up or are already on the ground proned out unless they want to shoot it out, its when you dont normally deal with the cops that people have some wacky ideas, its best to always keep your hands in plain view and dont put them inside your pockets as that makes us real nervous...

[EFerrari]

20. Here's a story about wacky stuff. TG it turned out okay.

I sold my car to a guy, a journalist, who we knew and who agreed to make two payments. He was a community guy, so I said, okay.

He never made the second one so I couldn't give him a bill of sale. The registration was in my name and then, he stopped paying for insurance. I wrote to him, I called him, nada. And there was nothing I could do, I found out from our cops, but have the car repo'd or write it off. And if I wrote it off, it would probably still be in my name somewhere.

I couldn't strangle the guy because that's a felony plus he had two babies. I couldn't hire a repo man because they cost a bundle. So, I had a friend watch and one evening after the guy got home and parked it, I went and took it back. With me I had copies of all the letters I wrote to the guy and my receipts for the registered mailings.

I drove the car up here to the ranch and parked it and tried to calm down enough to call the PD. At that time, there was nothing here but a little contractor's trailer, that stupid car and me and one land line. My office called to say, the police had called and were on their way to ranch. Sure enough, the phone rings and I get chewed out by someone, a dispatcher, for putting people in harms way. Then, I see a squad car gunning up the dirt road and a Santa Clara County sheriff exits his vehicle with his hand too close to his gun.

I was so scared that I don't remember what he asked me as he approached but it was something like, "Do you realize what you've done?" And he was really mad. And there we were, alone on 20 acres of nothing but me and a really mad cop. :scared:

I just stayed as still as possible and looked straight at him and said, "I'm really scared right now" in as normal a tone as I could manage. Well, that must have been the right answer, because he calmed down right away and after we talked and he read my docs, he was fine with it. I hadn't actually broken any law and he agreed that having someone driving around without insurance in a car registered TO ME was a really bad idea. The only question he really had after that was, did the guy I wrote to understand my letters, ie., was he literate? So I told him, the guy is a journalist and my letters were in English and in Spanish.

He took the copies of my docs, the few possessions that idiot had in the car and he left.

Every time one of these stories comes out, I remember that cop because he had total control of the situation, he could have treated me very badly and likely with the full support of his chain of command and instead, he managed himself very well and managed me decently.

[vadawg]

21. yup most of the time an interaction depends totally on how you react

its always best to listen to what we tell you and then once we are comfortable tell us your side, you got to remember initially i am wondering if this is the one were i dont come home so its better to listen to what i tell you. Problem is people want to argue before i have the scene secure and thats where stuff can go bad, nothing worse that someone who gets stopped for something minor and next thing you know they are fighting a cop in the street, not a good idea. Its always better to comply and fight in court if it gets that far.

[EFerrari]

22. "The one were I don't come home", exactly.

It goes both ways, too. Cops get training on how to interact with civilians (whether they learn it or apply it or not) but we don't get training on how to interact with cops. So, that whole "partnership" thing doesn't work very well.

Hey, vadawg, want to start a small training business? lol

[vadawg]

24. rofl yup, you got it right and the TV dosent help, i hate the CSI shows

i had one guy make a plaster cast of a shoeprint he took in his garden from someone he thought was a peeper, he honestly thought i could run it through a program to get the make and the purchaser and match that up with the weight distribution to catch the perp, and when we explained it dosent work that way he went mental and ended up punching a county cop, i think the guy was nuts to begin with but it was totally surreal.. As ive said best thing to do when dealing with cops is to follow our commands until we secure the scene remembering your own safety as well ie if your nervous ask for another officer to come, or a uniformed officer etc etc we dont get offended when asked that..

[EFerrari]

25. One of my oldest friends is the guy who developed "Cops".

lol

I'm half serious, though. I bet we could reduce unfortunate stuff by training kids how to interact with cops. Not training them to hand over their rights but just on simple stuff. Like, don't yell, don't wave your arms or any object, simple things. Half knowing your rights but also, training people to respond to a situation where lethal force is introduced. It can't hurt. In the sense that we don't want to get hurt or hurt other people, there's a vast swath of common ground that could be developed and maybe cut down on sad or stupid stuff.

[vadawg]

26. +1000 most important thing is dont fight on the street fight it in court

and if your right enjoy your money you get in the lawsuit, but i hate when people put me and themselves in danger over dumb shit...

oh you all have a great weekend my relief is enroute so im outta her until monday, dont burn the place down all ya all...

[Fumesucker]

32. I don't understand why the cop was angry..

You hadn't done anything to him personally and even if you had he should have been professional enough to maintain his cool.

[SmileyRose]

33. I think you have that backwards

I think the problem is police wrongly expecting everyone to be a criminal.

Citizens who don't have a lot of interaction with police should not be dying because they found themselves interacting with police. I appreciate and am incredibly grateful for what police officers do, and are willing to do to keep me and mine safe from the bad people. I really am. But in real life OUTSIDE of police world there is nothing wacky about putting your hands in your pockets on your own property. Police officers incapable of handling decent law abiding citizens, for whatever reason, either need additional training or else need to be reassigned to where innocents aren't getting hurt.

Police work takes really specialized talents and not everyone who wants to be a uniform cop is cut out for the job. GOOD police officers are never, ever paid what they are worth and are generally unappreciated IMHO. And in far too many places BAD police officers - either crooked or just simply not holding the necessary talents - are protected in their jobs by their peers instead of forced out.

[TransitJohn]

35. We don't know the facts!!!!!

Best to not think bad of these poor cops who were forced in to killing someone. :sarcasm:

[slackmaster]

16. Whoopsie!

:argh:

[Edweird]

28. According to the article, he was hiding in the closet. Why was he doing that?

If I am in my own house, I'm not hiding from anybody.

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

30. Nothing in the article about him hiding in a closet. It said he was "hiding" in his bedroom.

[ecstatic]

34. His reality is different than yours... I mean, look at the outcome