VICTORVILLE, California — Southern California sheriff’s deputies shot and killed a 17-year-old boy with mental health problems after he armed himself with a knife and locked himself in a bathroom of a home, authorities said Wednesday.
The teen was being transferred from a hospital, where he was being treated after cutting himself, to a mental health facility when he escaped Tuesday, San Bernardino County Sheriff Shannon Dicus said.
The boy, a foster boy who lives in Hesperia, later showed up at a home in Victorville where his sisters live in foster care, Dicus said. Someone at the house called officers to come and arrest him, Dicus said, because he had caused trouble there before.
The teen, who had a knife, locked himself in a bathroom and deputies tried to get him out for about a half hour, the sheriff said. But when the boy threatened to harm himself, officers kicked in the door and tried to arrest him, Dicus said.
A video and still images of the encounter showed the teen holding a knife, the Riverside Press-Enterprise reported. Officers sprayed him with pepper spray and one officer’s hand was cut by the knife, the newspaper said.
The teen was backed into a bathtub, where he was shot, Dicus said. He was pronounced dead at a hospital.
The death came less than a month after San Bernardino officers shot and killed 15-year-old Ryan Gainer. The autistic boy had threatened family members at a Victorville home and then chased a deputy with a garden hoe, the sheriff’s department said.
Dicus said Wednesday that deputies were confronted with violence in both cases. He said parents need more access to mental health care for their troubled children so that law enforcement is not the only option in times of crisis.
“My record as sheriff over the last several years has been advocating for a better mental health system,” Dicus said. “The corrections environment and our public environment has been tested a number of times where the only mental health resource that we have in our community is law enforcement, and that’s the only resource that we have 24/7.”