Similar High-Speed Police Chases Show Stark Contrasts

The two incidents in Ventura County this week had striking parallels. Both were high-speed police chases. And both ended after a cornered suspect had rammed a police car.

But there were dramatically different conclusions.

In Oxnard Monday night, the first incident ended when an unarmed suspect was fatally shot by an Oxnard police officer. In Saticoy on Wednesday night, the pursuit ended when the second suspect was captured alive.

Police officials emphasized in interviews Thursday that the different outcomes simply serve to demonstrate that an officer’s decision on whether to use deadly force often comes as a lightning-quick reaction with no time to weigh department policy.

“It’s a judgmental situation where, generally, there are just moments to make a decision,” said Ventura County Assistant Sheriff Oscar Fuller. “It’s a tough call to make.”

“It comes down to the officer and the level of threat,” said Ventura Police Lt. Don Arth.

Officers are trained at police academies and drilled repeatedly on the job on when it is appropriate to fire their weapons. They know that they can use deadly force when an officer or others are threatened with serious injury or death.

Earlier this year, a crime suspect attempted to run down a Ventura County sheriff’s deputy with a stolen van. As the speeding van clipped the deputy he opened fire, injuring the suspect, who was captured.

“We don’t shoot to wound,” Fuller said. “There’s no justifiable use of firearms unless it’s lethal force.”

And, law enforcement authorities said, there’s no easy answer as to when to use that force.

“Situations are different,” was the terse response Thursday of Oxnard Assistant Police Chief James Latimer about his colleague’s fatal shooting.

Oxnard Police Officer Jim O’Brien used his 9-millimeter Beretta shortly before 10 p.m. on Monday to fire seven rounds at James Kevin Graham, a mentally disturbed person. Graham, 38, died in his car’s driver’s seat, police said, and he was unarmed.

O’Brien, 33, an eight-year decorated veteran of the Oxnard police force, had been called to a quiet Oxnard residential neighborhood with Officer Martin Ennis to investigate the erratic actions of Graham, a homeless man with a history of mental illness and drug problems.

For whatever reasons, Graham decided to bolt the scene, sideswiping Ennis’ squad car and racing away. Ennis and O’Brien, in separate cars, gave chase and soon cornered Graham in a cul-de-sac abutting a farm field in the 5000 block of Tulsa Drive.

Police said Graham “became involved in a head-on collision” with Ennis’ vehicle in the tiny cul-de-sac. O’Brien opened fire from what appeared to be relatively close range, authorities indicated. Four rounds struck Graham, three smashing through the driver’s window, one through the driver’s door of his 1978 Oldsmobile, the coroner said. A coroner’s investigator found the victim slumped in the driver’s seat, a fatal bullet in his heart.

Oxnard police won’t discuss the shooting because the police agency and the county prosecutor are investigating it. O’Brien, who was placed on administrative leave, cannot comment publicly on what motivated him to kill Graham.

Two days later, on Wednesday night, Senior Sheriff’s Deputy Craig Adford and his K-9 German shepherd, Barry, were on patrol shortly before midnight in El Rio when he got a call that a burglar alarm had gone off at an auto parts store at Vineyard Avenue and Collins Street. In moments, Adford was at the scene.

Just as he got to the store, a late-model blue Ford pickup truck roared off into the night. Adford and deputies in other cars gave chase on and off the Ventura Freeway at speeds peaking at 100 m.p.h. In an effort to elude the deputies, the suspect drove the wrong way on freeway ramps and side streets.

“Cars were just bailing out of his way to avoid colliding with him,” Adford, 35, a decorated Sheriff’s veteran, said Thursday. “I thought of abandoning the chase.”

At one point, on Telephone Road near Wells Road, the suspect threw a cash register out the truck’s window. “Hey, there goes the cash register,” Adford recalls telling the dispatcher.

About 20 minutes later, after racing through portions of El Rio and Ventura, the pursuit ended in Saticoy. The suspect attempted to elude deputies by taking a dirt road toward a flood channel.

But Adford knew the geography and sped ahead on California 118 to a point where he knew that the suspect would have to exit.

Adford sat there--motor running, red lights flashing, adrenalin pumping--waiting in the night, believing that the suspect would stop in front of him because of a 4-foot-high wooden barricade where the dirt road met the pavement.

“I thought he would just give up,” Adford said.

He was wrong.

Seconds later, he saw the pickup truck’s headlights coming right at him. Suddenly, at an estimated speed of about 20 m.p.h., Adford said the truck crashed through the barricade and collided head-on with his squad car--even though the suspect had ample room to maneuver on either side of the deputy’s car.

Adford said that at no time did he consider using his 9-millimeter handgun.

“I was still in my car,” he said, recalling the moment of the collision. “There was no immediate threat to my life after he collided. It didn’t even come into my mind. The threat had already passed once he had collided with me.

“I never even entertained the thought. If he uses his car in a lethal fashion and I feel my life is in immediate jeopardy, I would be justified in using my weapon. But I was inside my car and his speed was not a factor.”

Still, Adford, an 11-year Sheriff’s veteran, said, “I was upset. This was my brand new car. A Ford Crown Victoria. I had waited so long for this car.”

Moments later, the suspect, Rene Robert Ruiz, 25, of Saticoy, intentionally rammed another patrol car, driven by Sheriff’s Deputy Carlos Macias. Again, Macias was uninjured and did not use his weapon.

After the second collision, Ruiz fled on foot into Saticoy Park with Adford, his canine partner Barry and Macias in pursuit. He was apprehended and arrested without incident a few seconds later. Ruiz was unarmed.

No one was injured.

When an officer is faced with the prospect of using lethal force, “it’s an awful decision,” Adford said. “In the back of your mind you’re also thinking about the civil liability of your department.” Back at the sheriff’s station, he said, “I started shaking” when he heard a replay of the high-speed chase on the dispatcher’s tape.

“When I got home,” he said, “I hugged my wife and watched my little kids sleeping.”

Adford reflected for a moment on his harrowing night, and declared: “You gotta do what you gotta do.”