Video of non-injury Mission Valley police shooting released

City News Service
Posted

SAN DIEGO (CNS) - Authorities today released video footage of a non-
injury police shooting that took place last month as officers were chasing a parolee with a history of butting heads with law enforcement as he fled through a brushy area near the San Diego River in Mission Valley.

A uniform-mounted camera worn by Officer Johnathan Penuelas of the San
Diego Police Department captured images and audio as he fired his service pistol repeatedly at 44-year-old Judah Starr McBreairty on a footpath off the
4700 block of Pacific Highway late on the morning of June 30.

Penuelas discharged a dozen rounds after McBreairty stopped, turned toward the pursuing officers, yelled "freeze" and ``don't move,'' and held up his hands as if pointing a gun in their direction, according to police.

Following the fusillade of gunfire, McBreairty ran off, unharmed.
The events that led to the shooting had begun a short time earlier,
when Penuelas and a fellow officer came across McBreairty -- an arrest-warrant subject with a history of forcibly resisting officers, according to police -- at his makeshift camp in an open area near the 900 block of Sea World Drive.

After giving the lawmen a false name, McBreairty declined their offer of homelessness services and told them to leave him alone, police said. He then fled to the southeast, crossing underneath Interstate 5 before reaching the spot just north of I-8 where the law enforcement gunfire erupted.

Following the shooting, McBreairty bolted. He then eluded police searches of the riverbed for the rest of the morning, through the afternoon and into the evening hours before officers finally tracked him down and took him into custody with help from a service dog.

After being treated for injuries he suffered when officers sicced the canine on him, McBreairty was booked into San Diego Central Jail. He remained in custody this week, charged with resisting arrest, illegally camping on public property and violating terms of his parole.

You can watch the video here.