1 month ago
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Body-worn camera footage released Tuesday shows a sheriff’s deputy fatally shoot a man allegedly armed with a knife near a crowded outdoor event in Imperial Beach earlier this month.
Investigators said Gary Gates, 51, was advancing toward deputies with a knife in his hand and asking them to shoot him when Deputy Maxwell Hammond shot him around 1:40 p.m. Dec. 21 on Seacoast Drive near Evergreen Avenue.
The shooting is being investigated by San Diego police under a countywide protocol designed to prevent departments from investigating shootings by their own officers or deputies.
The edited video begins by detailing a call involving Gates two days before the shooting, during which deputies received a report that he was experiencing a drug overdose in the same location. Gates had posted on social media around 5:40 p.m. that he had “swallowed a golf ball-sized chunk of fentanyl” and that if the police came to his aid, he would give them a reason to shoot him.
Text in the video says deputies found Gates holding a 6-inch folding knife against his chest and threatening to kill himself.
Psychiatric help and crisis negotiation teams were called, and after a few hours, Gates put the knife away. He declined further mental health services, and deputies left the scene, according to text in the video.
Two days later, deputies received a call in the early afternoon from Gates, who...
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