San Diego sheriff deputies clash with San Diego police over cop shooting

SAN DIEGO (CN) — Intent was the main focus of a dismissal hearing in a San Diego federal courthouse on Thursday in a case where a San Diego sheriff's deputy shot a San Diego detective in the leg while firing at a suspect.

In 2022, members of a multi-agency law enforcement task force for investigating car thefts in San Diego County pursued a suspect named Erik Talavera down a cul-de-sac in the city of El Cajon. One of the task force members was National City Police Detective Rowdy Pauu, who was working in plain clothes in an unmarked car.   

The task force surrounded Talavera and called in San Diego County Sheriff’s deputies. According to Pauu in his complaint, two deputies, David Lovejoy and Jonathon Young, showed up, set up 50 feet from Talavera’s car, and — without warning or any coordination — fired multiple rounds at Talavera when he exited the car with a knife. 

Talavera was hit 16 times, but survived, albeit with lifelong health care needs, he says in his own complaint against Lovejoy, Young and San Diego County.  

Pauu, who was behind Talavera, was shot in the leg. He also survived.   

In his complaint, Talavera claims that he was already on the ground, trying to comply with conflicting orders, when the deputies began firing in what’s described as an instance of sympathetic gunfire, a concept where one law enforcement officer's gunfire induces another officer to start shooting.  

Both Pauu and Talavera are seeking damages in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California. Their cases were consolidated. 

According to Pauu, Lovejoy told members of the task force that he had seen Pauu in his line of sight before he fired his gun, but he took the shot anyway because he thought “he could make it.”

That attitude of deliberate indifference, extreme recklessness, and excessive force constitutes unconstitutional seizure under the Fourth Amendment and substantive due process violation under the Fourteenth Amendment, Pauu claims. 

“An officer’s underlying intent or motives are not relevant in determining whether the use of force was reasonable,” Pauu said in his complaint.

“The Fourth Amendment is an objective inquiry,” said Eugene Iredale, Pauu’s attorney. If there’s a reasonable chance, he added, of an innocent victim being hurt in the “zone of danger” by a law enforcement officer trying to shoot a suspect, and that bystander is hurt when the officer misses, then there’s objectionable reasonability and liability under the Fourth Amendment.

San Diego County attorney Steve Inman questioned if Lovejoy had actually made the “he could make it” statement to the task force, and added that the intentionality of an officer is important when making a Fourth Amendment violation claim. He also said that the deputies did not intend to shoot Pauu, and the plaintiffs have not proved otherwise.   

“I don’t agree with the ‘zone of fire’ analysis because it has no basis in case law,” he added. 

Inman further said that the deputies should be granted qualified immunity — the controversial legal principle that shields government officials from liability unless they violate laws deemed to be “clearly established” at the time — because they weren’t aiming to hit Pauu intentionally.

The sheriff’s deputies also had to make a split second decision about how to react to Talavera’s knife, Inman added, and there was no time to deliberate. 

Pauu countered that they are not entitled to qualified immunity because they were aware that shooting under those types of circumstances would violate the Fourth Amendment.

“There was an opportunity for deliberation, and it was not taken,” Iredale said. 

U.S. District Judge Todd W. Robinson, a Donald Trump appointee, said he would take the defendant’s motion to dismiss under consideration.

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