Police shoot, kill man at College Area apartment complex; body cam shows man reaching for gun

A San Diego police officer shot and killed a man Tuesday at a College Area apartment complex after the man allegedly reached for a gun, police said.

According to investigators, the man — who has not yet been identified — was one of two people in a Tesla that chased down another driver earlier this month in an alleged road rage incident that led to both men firing at the driver in Clairemont. The other person in the Tesla, according to police, was killed later the same day during a confrontation with police at Mesa College that also led to the death of a police dog.

The shooting on Tuesday happened after officers received a call around 6:45 p.m. that a suspect in the Clairemont incident was in an apartment on El Cajon Boulevard near College Avenue, San Diego County sheriff’s Lt. Joseph Jarjura said at a Tuesday night briefing.

Police arrived to serve a warrant for the man’s arrest and ordered him out of the apartment. He complied but was armed with a handgun, Jarjura said.

Officers told him to drop the weapon, and he did, but Jarjura said the man kept looking at the gun and refused to move away from it. At some point, the man “quickly lunged” to grab the weapon, and one officer opened fire multiple times, Jarjura said.

Officers provided medical aid, but the man died around 7 p.m. before he could be taken to a hospital, the sheriff’s lieutenant said. The man has been identified, but his name is not being released until his family is notified. No one else was injured.

The county Sheriff’s Department is investigating the incident under a countywide protocol that ensures no department investigates its own officer-involved shootings.

Jarjura said investigators believe the man who was shot Tuesday was involved in a shooting on Ben Street in Clairemont on Aug. 2. They suspect the man was one of two people seen in a white Tesla early that morning.

A dash-cam captured video of someone shooting from the Tesla at a passing vehicle.

A second man who had been in the Tesla — later identified as Benjamin Pickens, 33 — was found alone about a half-hour later. Pickens, who was behind the wheel of the Tesla, drove the car away from officers and onto the Mesa College campus where he crashed into a center divider on Armstrong Circle, investigators said.

Pickens ran from the officers, but they caught up to him a short distance away. A confrontation between Pickens and police came to a head when one of the officers shot Pickens, who then shot a police dog that was running at him.

Both Pickens and the dog, a 4½-year-old Belgian Malinois named Sir, died as a result of their injuries.