The San Diego County Sheriff’s Department released video Friday of a deputy’s March 10 shooting of a man accused of driving a stolen pickup truck toward him during a confrontation.
Deputy Carlos Ramirez-Ochoa fired at the truck Brenton Kinzenbaw, 25, drove during the early-morning incident on Oro Street in the unincorporated Bostonia area of El Cajon. The suspect, from Alpine, suffered injuries to both of his legs in the shooting and the crash of the truck as he fled.
The video, posted to YouTube, is an edited compilation of body-worn camera footage from two other deputies, Jason Balinger and Benjamin Cole. Ochoa-Ramirez’s camera was not turned on during the incident, according to the post because he believed “the pickup truck was empty at the time of contact.”
The events that led to the gunfire began late the previous night, when a deputy spotted the stolen Toyota truck parked in a neighborhood north of an area where Interstate 8 meets North Second Street, according to San Diego police, who investigate shootings involving Sheriff’s personnel.
The pickup had been reported stolen earlier that day during a commercial burglary in Alpine.
After 90 minutes of watching the truck, deputies, including Ramirez-Ochoa, approached the it, then realized there was a man standing on its passenger side and another person, Kinzenbaw, inside, behind the wheel.
The post, mostly made up of footage from Balinger’s camera, shows the driver ignoring commands to leave the truck. Kinzenbaw then puts it in reverse and hits the gas, crashing into a parked vehicle, prompting gunfire from Ramirez-Ochoa, who had to dive out of the way.
Though wounded, the suspect fled to the north, starting a brief chase. Deputies lost Kinzenbaw, but the truck crashed nearby, at Greenfield Drive and North Second Street, and they later located him hiding in a shed in a resident’s backyard on Arlington Place.
Injured, he complied with orders to drop his phone, surrendering without incident and receiving treatment, the video showed. Paramedics ultimately transported him to a hospital to be treated for non-life-threatening injuries.
He is set to appear in court Tuesday morning. He faces multiple charges, including assault with a deadly weapon, evading police, hit and run, vehicle theft and vandalism.