Krys Ruiz shot after charging officers with knife, Lompoc Police say

  • Oops!
    Something went wrong.
    Please try again later.
  • Oops!
    Something went wrong.
    Please try again later.
  • Oops!
    Something went wrong.
    Please try again later.
Dave Minsky, Santa Maria Times, Calif.
·3 min read
  • Oops!
    Something went wrong.
    Please try again later.
  • Oops!
    Something went wrong.
    Please try again later.
  • Oops!
    Something went wrong.
    Please try again later.

Apr. 21—A 26-year-old transgender man killed in a March 28 officer-involved shooting in Lompoc was armed with a knife when he was shot, according to police on Wednesday.

Krys Brandon Ruiz, of Lompoc, sustained a fatal gunshot wound after charging at officers with a knife in the 100 block alley of North G and H streets shortly after 8 p.m., according to Lompoc Police Chief Joseph Mariani. The knife was recovered at the scene, Mariani said.

Mariani issued his statement after a published request from Fresno attorney Bill Schmidt, who represents Ruiz's family, called on a new law that requires the state attorney general to investigate incidents of unarmed people shot by police.

"The rationale for this request was based on misinformation that the suspect involved in this incident was unarmed," Mariani said, citing a preliminary investigation. "The investigation is currently ongoing and being conducted by the Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Office."

An hour before the shooting, Ruiz was dropped off at his apartment by his mother after dinner blocks away from the shooting location, according to Schmidt, adding Ruiz wasn't intoxicated, agitated or depressed. Minutes before Ruiz was shot, police responded to an unrelated call of a man walking northbound on North H Street armed with a gun.

More than a week after the shooting, on April 7, Schmidt sent a letter to Lompoc Police, the county Sheriff's Office, District Attorney's Office and the Attorney General's Public Inquiry Unit, calling for a state investigation into Ruiz's shooting based on government code 12525.3.

The new statute went into effect on Jan. 1, 2021, and is based on AB 1506, a law signed by the governor on Sept. 30, 2020, that requires a state prosecutor to investigate when police use deadly force against unarmed people.

Mariani, however, said that law doesn't apply in this case because Ruiz was armed, adding all sheriffs, police chiefs and district attorneys across the state were informed on April 6 that the Attorney General's Office is awaiting funds appropriated by the state budget to implement the law, which should be available on July 1.

In addition, Mariani said the Lompoc Police Department is awaiting the Santa Barbara County District Attorney's review of the Sheriff's Office investigation once it's completed.

While the law, although not yet implemented, requires a referral to the Attorney General's Office, there's nothing that prevents the attorney general from taking over the investigation at any time, according to Schmidt on Tuesday. He cited several facts as the basis for state involvement, including Sheriff Bill Brown's 11-year tenure as Lompoc police chief and District Attorney Joyce Dudley's help in developing statewide use-of-force training in 2019.

"We believe it would be prudent and reasonable to have the California Attorney General's Office investigate this case and hope they agree to do so," Schmidt said. In a previous interview, Schmidt said it wasn't in Ruiz's nature to be confrontational. "[Krys] was not a threat to anyone and they shot him after they asked him to show his hands," he said.

Recommended Stories

  • Columbus, Ohio, police shoot and kill teenage girl waving knife

    Officials with the Columbus Division of Police showed a segment of the footage Tuesday night just hours after the shooting took place in a neighborhood on the city's east side.

  • Freeport-McMoRan Stock Gets Downgraded. An Analyst Sees Risks for Copper Demand.

    UBS downgraded shares of Freeport-McMoRan to Hold from Buy, warning of some issues that could dent demand for copper.

  • Why the Earnings Surprise Streak Could Continue for S&P Global (SPGI)

    S&P Global (SPGI) has an impressive earnings surprise history and currently possesses the right combination of the two key ingredients for a likely beat in its next quarterly report.

  • Ma’Khia Bryant: 16-year-old girl shot dead by police in Columbus, Ohio

    Teenager shot and killed by police responding to attempted stabbing, moments before judge delivered verdict in Chauvin trial Police in Columbus, Ohio, fatally shot a 16-year-old girl on Tuesday afternoon, just moments before Derek Chauvin was found guilty of murdering George Floyd. The girl was identified by local media as Ma’Khia Bryant. Officers were responding to an attempted stabbing call and, when police arrived, shot the girl around 4.45pm, officials said. The 911 caller reported a female was trying to stab them before hanging up, they said. Hazel Bryant, who identified herself as the girl’s aunt, told the Columbus Dispatch that she lived in a nearby foster home. According to the Dispatch, Bryant said the teen got into a dispute with someone else at the foster home, and that her niece had a knife but dropped it before being shot multiple times by an officer. The girl was taken to a hospital, where she was pronounced dead. Nobody else was injured, the newspaper reported. Releasing police body-camera video of Tuesday’s shooting in Ohio’s capital hours later, the interim Columbus police chief, Michael Woods, said officers were answering an emergency-911 call from someone who reported an attempted stabbing. Police arriving at the home encountered several people on the front lawn of a house where the female youth, seen brandishing what appeared to be knife, was charging toward another female who fell backwards, the video showed. A police officer then opened fire on the youth as she collapsed against a car parked in the driveway. The video then shows what appears to be a kitchen knife lying on the pavement near the teenager. The shooting, which took place approximately 25 minutes before the judge handed down the guilty verdict against Chauvin, cast a shadow over the celebrations across the country that followed the trial’s conclusion. A crowd of protesters gathered on Tuesday night at the scene on Legion Lane, which police had partially blocked off to traffic, while other demonstrators rallied at the city’s police headquarters. “We don’t get to celebrate nothing,” said KC Traynor, one of the demonstrators who spoke with the Dispatch. “In the end, you know what, you can’t be Black.” Kimberly Shepherd, 50, who has lived in the neighborhood for 17 years, said she knew the victim. “The neighborhood has definitely went through its changes, but nothing like this,” Shepherd said of the shooting. “But this is the worst thing that has ever happened out here and unfortunately it is at the hands of police.” Shepherd and her neighbor Jayme Jones, 51, had celebrated the guilty verdict of Chauvin. But things changed quickly, she said. “We were happy about the verdict. But you couldn’t even enjoy that,” Shepherd said. “Because as you’re getting one phone call that he was guilty, I’m getting the next phone call that this is happening in my neighborhood.” The shooting occurred as advocates warned that while the Chauvin verdict should be hailed for holding police accountable, it does not amount to justice for George Floyd, and that far more work must be done to tackle systemic racism and police brutality. “As we breathed a collective sigh of relief today, a community in Columbus felt the sting of another police shooting,” tweeted Ben Crump, the civil rights attorney representing Floyd’s family. “Another child lost! Another hashtag,” he wrote. As we breathed a collective sigh of relief today, a community in Columbus felt the sting of another police shooting as @ColumbusPolice killed an unarmed 15yo Black girl named Makiyah Bryant. Another child lost! Another hashtag. ✊🏾🙏🏾#JusticeForMakiyahBryant https://t.co/9ssR5gfqm5— Ben Crump (@AttorneyCrump) April 21, 2021 Andrew Ginther, the mayor of Columbus, confirmed the shooting in a tweet and said that authorities were working to review body-camera footage of the incident. “This afternoon a young woman tragically lost her life,” he said. “We do not know all of the details.” He urged calm while the investigation continued. Speaking at the news conference later on Tuesday, he said: “We know, based on this footage, the officer took action to protect another young girl in our community.” • This story has been updated to correct the spelling of Ma’Khia Bryant’s first name and age.

  • Rail Stocks Are on the Move for Four Reasons

    Stock in CSX, which reported its results late Tuesday, was nearly 5% higher on Wednesday even though earnings were a bit lower than expected.

  • Employee requested transfer before deadly Long Island grocery store shooting, police say

    "He left the building without any violence or anything else being said," police said. "Forty minutes later, he returned to the building and you know the rest."

  • Five major immigration promises Biden hasn't yet fulfilled

    Not one separated migrant family has been reunited by the Biden administration. Family detention centers run by ICE are still operating.

  • Whoa! The cult-fave Roomba 675 — with over 28,000 perfect ratings — is on sale for $199 at Amazon

    Why spend time vacuuming when a robot can do it for you?

  • Europe lines up more shots, hoping to beat back virus surge

    Slow out of the gate, the European Union has ramped up its COVID-19 vaccination efforts, with the distribution of the Johnson & Johnson one-shot product this week adding to the momentum amid doggedly high infection rates on the continent. The EU's vaccine drive still lags far behind that of Britain or the United States. “In the first quarter of 2021 only 10% of Germans were able to receive a first vaccination due to the shortage of vaccine,” German Health Minister Jens Spahn said this week.

  • Analysis: The housing boom, central banks and the inflation conundrum

    A multi-year boom in global house prices which even a pandemic has failed to halt is forcing central banks around the world to confront a knotty question - what, if anything, should they be doing about it? The surge in property values from Australia to Sweden is often viewed benignly by governments as creating wealth. The irony is that while the cheap money created by low or negative interest rates has driven the price rises, they barely figure in central banks' calculations of inflation, one of the key drivers of their monetary policy.

  • Heathrow refuses to allow extra flights from India

    The airport tells the BBC that it turned down requests from airlines to operate additional flights.

  • Man dead after standoff with police in Worcester

    A man carrying a rifle and claiming to have a bomb has died in a shooting involving police in Worcester.

  • Teen's death puts focus on split-second police decisions

    Thirteen-year-old Adam Toledo dropped the gun he'd been holding, turned and began raising his hands just as the officer had commanded. The graphic video that became the latest tragic touchstone in the nation’s reckoning with race and policing puts a microscope on those split-second decisions with far-reaching and grave consequences. Investigators are still sorting through exactly what happened, but the shooting has raised difficult questions about why the boy wasn't given more time to comply and whether the deadly encounter could have been prevented in the first place.

  • 1 killed, another injured in shooting at Wawa gas station in Pennsylvania

    The shooting occurred at a Wawa gas station in Upper Macungie Township, about 60 miles north of Philadelphia, authorities said. The suspected gunman also died.

  • Ohio police fatally shoot 16-year-old girl after call about knife attack

    Columbus police said body camera video shows someone trying to stab two people before the deadly shooting.

  • Senate Republican says U.S. police reform proposal may be done in week or two

    One day after a Minnesota jury convicted a police officer for the murder of George Floyd, Republican U.S. Senator Tim Scott said on Wednesday he may be finished with drafting a proposal for a policing reform bill in the next week or two. Scott introduced a policing bill last summer, amid global protests sparked by the death of Floyd, an African-American man who white police officer Derek Chauvin killed by kneeling on his neck for more than nine minutes. Chauvin's conviction prompted fresh calls for action on police reform in Congress.

  • AG Bill Barr reportedly told a US attorney 'I am going to f---ing fire your a--' if he talked to Matt Gaetz about DOJ business

    "If I ever hear of you talking to Gaetz...I am going to f---ing fire your ass," Barr told the US attorney last year, while the DOJ was probing Gaetz.

  • Babysitter used wrestling moves on 1-year-old before his death, Texas police say

    He’s also accused of holding the infant like a football.

  • Babysitter used wrestling moves on 1-year-old before his death, Texas police say

    He’s also accused of holding the infant like a football.

  • The 24 actors who have gotten the most Oscar nominations without winning one

    A handful of great actors like Amy Adams, Glenn Close, and Bradley Cooper have been repeatedly neglected by the Oscars.