West Sacramento police officers fatally shot a man Saturday during an early-morning encounter on West Capitol Avenue.
Authorities have launched an investigation into the shooting, which occurred at about 3 a.m. as officers responded to a report of a Black male adult armed with a gun in the 1800 block of West Capitol Avenue, West Sacramento police Sgt. Eric Angle said in a news release.
Several police units responded to the scene, initially making contact with a person they determined was not related to the call, according to Angle.
“As officers continued searching the area, one officer noticed a subject seated in a vehicle behind the police units at Merkley Avenue and Poplar Avenue,” Angle said. “As the officer attempted to contact the driver, the unidentified adult African-American male exited the vehicle armed with a handgun and a shooting ensued.”
Angle said the officers began life-saving measures while summoning emergency responders to the scene, but the man died of his shooting injuries. No officers or bystanders were hurt.
Yolo County coroner’s officials had not released the man’s name as of Saturday evening, still awaiting positive identification.
It was not immediately clear whether there was an exchange of gunfire, or if only the officers discharged their weapons. Angle declined to release additional details when asked for clarification, saying that “there will be more information released as the investigation unfolds.”
In keeping with Yolo County’s officer-involved fatal incident protocol, the six involved officers will be placed on administrative leave during the investigation, which will be conducted by an outside police agency, in this case the Davis Police Department.
Of the six officers on scene, four were “directly involved” in the shooting, Angle said — a sergeant with 15 years of law-enforcement experience and three officers with five years or less on the force.
The officer-involved shooting is Yolo County’s first since Dec. 19, 2019, when Davis police fatally shot a man who had stabbed his mother to death inside their North Davis home, then charged at officers with knives as they attempted to order him out of the house.
— Reach Lauren Keene at lkeene@davisenterprise.net. Follow her on Twitter at @laurenkeene
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