The U.S. Open of Surfing generates approximately $55.3 million in economic impact to the city of Huntington Beach, based on an estimated 375,000 attendees to the multi-day event. This afternoon at 3:15, in the middle of that event, HB police reported that “an officer-involved shooting” occurred on the sand, near the Pier. (HOW WAS THE OFFICER INVOLVED, you ask.) They report as of now that the male victim has been “transported to the hospital,” “condition unknown.”
But that’s not the impression a lotta witnesses got – word is he ran, was tased and fell, then lying helpless on the ground, then shot about ten times point blank. Witnesses were certain the guy was killed. (Word also was he had a gun, but you know how that is – once that rumor gets around, that’s what everyone thinks, they figure he had it coming and everything is right in the world, and they put the whole thing out of mind. More often than not, it turns out he DIDN’T have a gun. Or a knife. Maybe a cell phone, or a plastic bag.)
Someone sent TMZ a couple of videos:
And The Post-Shooting Crowd Control:
TMZ was originally reporting that the victim LOOKED black (OR like some kinda “POC”), and then at 5 the HBPD told them that no, he is not black. But you know what? He looks black in the video, he looked black to the witnesses, and that means he looked black to the cops. SO … what’s the difference? If he was shot hastily and unjustly due to some cops’ predispositions about blacks (and it doesn’t turn out he was really threatening anyone himself) then he joins all the other black victims, you know? Update the guy was Latino.
We’ll report more as we learn more. But meanwhile, any witnesses out there, contact us! Think of us as the TMZ of Orange County, but more political and with a long history of covering police killings!
Update – new footage
This little clip was on Instagram, and a little hard to figure out, so I played it three times and put it onto YouTube. The guy, a Latino, was holding up what seems to be a dark teeshirt covered by a white teeshirt, who knows why? And the police shot him a few times and he fell. Then he starts crawling back to his fallen black teeshirt, and they shoot him many more times. I don’t see any weapon.
Update – HBPD Press Release
The victim / suspect has died, rest in peace. And apparently he was armed. There is a photo of him with a gun sticking out of his waistband. Which makes it really strange that he was holding up two teeshirts toward the cops instead of a gun. Now it looks like suicide by cop. And that last fusillade of shots that we see above was totally unnecessary – he was not reaching for any weapon, just his teeshirts.
UPDATE Sunday morning
1. Apparently the deceased guy WAS armed and dangerous, and we’re glad the police prevented any other deaths or injuries. It’s too bad he couldn’t have been arrested without being killed.
2. NO APOLOGIES for covering a police shooting with SKEPTICISM these days, until more facts come out. This is justified by long experience.:
3. One nagging question – how can both these photos, below, be real, unless he had TWO guns? (And then the PD should let us know he had two guns.) It’s the second photo that made a lot of us think he hadn’t been aiming a gun at the cops (which they couldn’t have known for sure) and wasn’t reaching for a gun later when he was lying on the sand (which would mean the final volley of gunfire was unnecessary.) Maybe this will make sense later?
Update Sunday night – name released.
The OCSD (why the OCSD?) has released the name of the victim – Ronnie Andrew Garcia. They’re still saying “a gun was found on the scene,” and they’re not saying if it was on him, in the white tee-shirt, in his waistband, or if there were two guns. Or if what was in his waistband was a clip of ammunition as some folks are thinking.
And it’s strange that it’s the Sheriff’s Department speaking on this rather than the HBPD, AND that they will be conducting the investigation rather than the DA. Is this because it was on the beach? I don’t think it’s a state beach there. I’ll try and find out the reason.
Monday morning update
Keani Hobgood, a young lady who was working the US Open provides some info on Facebook:
“So this guy was making trouble a surf event farther south of the us open and the security team there made the cops and us open security aware that he was threatening and acting erratic. He then tried to go into where the athletes and judges all are multiple times while threatening the security on site.
“As the cops pulled up they asked him to cooperate and put his weapon down but failed to do so. So the cops already had information that this man had a gun on him hiding under briefs. They did tase him first, then shot multiple times. Which is in my opinion was way too much of an over kill. And sloppy aim. And they should have shot in areas that wouldn’t have been fatal but would have disarmed.
“I don’t think think how this went down was correct at all and the PD are VERY lucky that there were no collateral damage. Just giving insight as I was working the us open and the security told me how the guy was acting towards them up to the point of the police meeting him by the boardwalk.”
A lot of us wish cops would “shoot to wound” or disable, rather than always shoot to kill – but this is their policy, nationwide I believe. Ironically it is Julian Harvey who explained that to me years ago in Anaheim, and now he is the Chief in Huntington Beach.
You are a bit biased. We’re you there, did you “eye witness” the event? You make a lot of assumptions about what happened based purely on speculation & conjecture. Why don’t you let the investigation pan out before assuming the cops ‘executed’ him. Some witnesses reported he had a gun.
But wait, he DID have a gun…..
Um, who are you talking to? Me?
Who ever it is doesn’t know what “pan out” means.
These anonymous comments are looking stupider and stupider with time.
First of all I was there with my family. I did not witness the shooting itself but did see the events leading up to this and the aftermath.
This was a dangerous situation with innocent citizens AT RISK.
I am no “Blue Lives” guy but the HBPD handled this with professionalism and concern for all. Even the bad guy.
I will adhere to the detectives request and NOT divulge what I witnessed leading up to this until I meet with the DA Investgators this week.
You are borderline irresponsible with this article. Look forward to learning more about this site and your views. I suspect you are nothing more than a “click bait” factory.
I’ve been getting a lot of criticism from the usual crowd of folks who think we should all believe anything police tell us, from the start, no questions asked.
I don’t see how anything in this story is even “borderline” irresponsible.
Still ongoing…
Thank you for your report. Ronnie was my childhood friend. The police often get away with murder and abuse their authority and power more often than not. Thank you for acknowledging that. There were too many police surrounding him after he was down and wounded to be an actual threat. They didn’t have to kill him.
Please check in here and let us know what the OCDA’s office allows you to divulge — primarily your reaction to the video with the woman yelling “you can’t do that!” to the police.
Your suspecting that we are a “clickbait factory” somewhat discredits you — some people might hold that suspicion, but they generally aren’t familiar with the site and don’t seek us out and post under pseudonyms — but it’s easily enough remedied. You can look through our archives and see many stories over the course of the past decade in which we cover police shootings and other police-caused fatalities.
Many easier ways to run a “clickbait factory” exist than running an investigative site that (unfortunately) often puts us in opposition to people with guns and a license to kill. I hope that you’ll do your due diligence, now that you’re here.
Heh, I did see that this story is getting an unusual number of “clicks” … but I didn’t even think about that till today. It was a story that I thought was important, and that a lot of OC people would take an interest in … that doesn’t ALWAYS translate to clicks like I think it should, but this time it did!
I’ve seen dozens of these type of incidents play out in the press and what they all have in common is that there is a direct correlation between the amount of exculpatory evidence the Department has in their possession and the level of transparency in which they engage in the public.
Exculpatory evidence gets released immediately, whether it is dispositive or merely circumstantial (such as a prior arrest on the part of the person shot), evidence which would not exonerate the department gets released far later, if at all, and usually only if the case draws significant public pressure, such as the Kelly Thomas death.
Also, where is the ambulance in these videos? There are plenty of police cars and police officers, as well there should be, but where is the ambulance? It looked like the officers were cuffing him at one point, which would mean he didn’t die immediately.
As far as cuffing, I’ve seen cops cuffing guys that are dead or dying before. Performative? Or for fear they’ll come back to life and pull a weapon out of nowhere?
Moving on, though, Anaheim police killed a fleeing suspect in Santa Ana last night. Gotta report on that now.
“come back to life and pull a weapon out of nowhere”
Indeed there is precedence for such a miracle. I direct your attention to Harry Hotspur whom was presumed dead, and yet was resurrected and did battle with Sir John Falstaff for a full hour by the Shrewsbury clock.
Also see: The end of most scary movies, right when you think the bad guy’s finally dead!
Falstaff was also presumed dead. That Shakespeare guy could have easily written for the soaps!
Foolish and hateful they are. But you’re not getting the two killings and the two threads mixed up are you? This guy Ronnie did apparently have a gun.
I think cuffing the person makes sense under those circumstances. Police officers aren’t medical professionals and it would be taking an unreasonable risk to themselves and the general public if they mis-diagnosed someone. But that cuts both ways. Just as they should assume the person is alive for purposes of apprehension, they should also assume they are alive for purposes of medical treatment.