San Jose police have identified the gunman who held a woman hostage Monday in a standoff that left both people dead and an officer wounded.
Leonel Acevedo, 45, forced Yolanda Najera, 53, into a Camden Avenue home at gunpoint just after 2pm Monday, according to the San Jose Police Department. Alerted by a 9-1-1 call, officers responded minutes later, surrounding the house and blocking off a quarter-mile stretch of Camden from El Paso to Ewer drives.
Camden Ave shooting suspect identified by #SanJose police as 45 yr old Leonel Acevedo. Killed by officer. pic.twitter.com/MsG6ihLAMx
— Matt Keller (@MattKellerABC7) November 10, 2015
Police negotiators, flanked by MERGE officers, tried to convince Acevedo to come out. When he finally emerged a few hours later, authorities said an officer shot and killed him after a quick exchange of gunfire.
#SJPD Merge Team arriving & headed to hostage scene. Traffic on Camden Ave. backed up. VTA rerouting buses. #SanJose pic.twitter.com/jsB5WqWBe0 — Maureen Naylor (@MaureenKTVU) November 10, 2015
Najera was found dead in the Cambrian neighborhood home. One of the officers, a 12-year SJPD veteran, suffered “a minor flesh wound.”
The motive and circumstances leading up to the killing remain under investigation. Acevedo knew Najera and lived at the Camden Avenue home until he was evicted in July, according to SJPD.
Investigators say Najera lived at Camden Ave. home where armed standoff occurred, and that Acevedo was a former resident of the home ...
— Robert Salonga (@robertsalonga) November 10, 2015
The cop who shot Acevedo was placed on paid leave while the District Attorney’s Office investigates the incident, which is standard protocol when an officer fires a weapon. This marks SJPD’s 10th officer-involved shooting this year, six of which have been fatal.
Police urge anyone with information about the case to call Detective Ken Tran or Sgt. Pat Guirre of the SJPD Homicide Unit at 408.277.5283. Those who want to remain anonymous can call Crime Stoppers at 408.947.7867 or submit a tip online.
San Jose PD Investigating Homicide and Officer Involved Shooting on the 4400 block of Camden Avenue https://t.co/29rMen9HsA #SJPD
— San Jose Police Dept (@SanJosePD) November 10, 2015
So, lemme guess—Acevedo was in the US illegally, and was a member of a Sureño gang. Glad the cop shot accurately. But, since Acevedo wasn’t white, we can expect panoply of investigations of the shoot to try to prove this was not a righteous kill
You have no information
Very sad for both families
Sadly Johnmichael, you’re probably right.
When he emerged firing a weapon, police shot and killed him. Now is that so difficult to relay SJI? It must pain you to print anything factual that shows what police did was exactly right. Way to fly the BANG, MN SJI anti establishment banner. Please confirm how many humans the police have “killed” so far this year? Oh ya and Im so relieved to know that he is on “paid administrative leave” because no one knows that and the media needs to beat that drum over and over… If Ladoris and her people had their way, cop would be sent home with no gun and no pay.
To the sleazebag pencil pusher who wrote this “news article” with an obvious slant, the proper term to use in the context of a reputable news source is “police officer” and not “cop”.
> This marks SJPD’s 10th officer-involved shooting this year, six of which have been fatal.
SInce SJI seems to be tabulating these things, what is Mr. Acevedo’s sequence number in the parade of illegal alien illegal gun crimes in San Jose this year, and how many of them have been fatal?
A murderer kills an innocent person and is then shot dead by the SJPD. I don’t see the down side here.
The reporter makes a big deal about this being the 10th shooting incident by SJPD this year. This seems to, yet again, be a bit of a misleading “terminological inexactitude”.
SJPD officers get into fewer shooting incidents, per capita, than any big city police department in the US. However, while the average number of rounds fired in police shootings, nationally, is approximately between 2-3; with SJPD the number is 5-6. Nationally the average hit probability (the number of rounds fired compared to the number that hit the target) is about 15-20%. The average hit probability for SJPD is in the range of almost 60%. Nationally, 25% of suspects shot by police die. In San Jose, the fatality rate hovers around 70%. While these numbers are not particularly current, I have no reason to believe that they have changed significantly since I last checked. They were gleaned from FBI reports, news reports, magazine articles, and information from the SJPD Firearms Training Unit. I invite any reporter to check into the matter and report back. I would appreciate and be interested in any update.
What does this mean? I would assert, with little fear of intelligent contradiction, that these numbers show that SJPD engages in fewer shootings than any big city police department in the country, indicating that they avoid using deadly force whenever possible and only when forced to do so in response to a suspect’s actions. However, whenever SJPD officers are presented with a situation where there is no other reasonable alternative but to employ deadly force, they do so with extraordinary efficiency.
What is the bottom line? For crooks, if you are going to use deadly force to commit a crime or to take on the police, DO NOT DO IT IN SAN JOSE. This should be posted at the entrance and exit of every jail and at the parole and probation offices. Again, I don’t see the down side here.
I forgot to add that I, too, fail to see a downside in this shooting.
My experiences with my training at SJPD are thus: Understand the moral and legal framework for understanding the lawful use of deadly force. When the use of deadly force is required to end the threat to the public, the officer, or other officers, be serious about ending the threat. Be controlled. Be accurate. Be lawful.
While I did not have available to me the statistics ‘Robillard’ cites above, I am glad that they square with my own, anecdotal, experience.
Mr. OFFICERANONYMOUS,
You might find this link interesting, It was very easy to find. In other words, no local journalist would have even looked for it, much less printed it.
http://www.bettergov.org/news/fatal-shootings-by-chicago-police-tops-among-biggest-us-cities
SJI really has no excuse for not being able to find this information…SJI’s cumulative body of work typically is made up of its writers searching the Web for published news from other sources. SJI seems to rely on the Merc as a primary source which is the journalistic equivalent of “the blind leading the blind.”
The well known anti-police bias the Merc is known for is only magnified by the hacks at SJI and plain to see and feel in the misinformation and skewed presentation such as we have in this article.
I find it totally bizarre that so many frequent readers and commenters here understand this yet will stream endless accolades on these same “journalists” when they write about the Water district, Shirakawa, Campos… and so many other subjects.
Sure it may be a public service to expose but when you are biased, skewed, angry, bitter, and vengeful (as I believe Josh and Jen and Pulcrano/The Metro continually reveal themselves to be) you lose credibility in all that you do.
The simple fact that SJI/Metro continues to make money from the well documented HUMAN TRAFFICKING “backpage . com” says all you need to know about the organization, the folks who work there, those they favor and those they use their tabloid journalism to attack.
He was not a bad person what happened to him? :(
au contraire ! He shot a woman in the face and killed her. That qualifies him as a very bad person.
He was part of my life.
Jessica,
Sounds like you’re grieving right now. Rather than try and engage in debate with the various characters here on SJI, maybe you can give us some insight as to why this happened? (Hint to everyone else, lay off her, don’t shoot the messenger)
I think we’re all curious about what happened. I can think of things that would drive me to kill a person. If they’re putting my families life in mortal danger for instance, or maybe scarred one of my children for life, but I can’t really think of any other circumstances outside of that. I think nearly everyone here is on the same page as me with this, which is why we’re having such a hard time understanding this, because in our minds there are only one or two things that would drive us to kill a person.
Feel free to tell us your side of what happened. If there is biased in the reporting you should explain it, otherwise go back to your grieving and disengage with the folks here.
Were you there?
If you were not there pls don’t judge
I suppose those responses were directed towards me.
Jessica I tried to be nice about this, but it’s obvious you don’t possess the capability to see the danger he posed to the general public. Yes, I was there that night. I stopped at El Pollo Loco for my families dinner. I was wondering why the street was blocked off.
My family and I live close enough where one of these stray bullets could have easily reached my house. What if they had hit one of my children? Then what? Would you still be displaying this level of selfishness?
I’d guess so. There was nothing this woman did that deserved a bullet to the face. Your lack of empathy towards the general public and the victim tell me that.
Jessica,
I agree with you. He was not a bad person. It was just his cold-blooded murder of an innocent person,and his shooting it out with the police (wounding one officer), that fooled us.
You think he wasn’t a bad person well he was I lived at the house he killed my grandma almost wanted to kill my grandpa he would drink and put loud music at 1:00 or 2:00 am and nobody couldn’t sleep he would always spy on my brother playing outside he even told my grandma that something bad was going to happen and look what he did.
Sorry for your loss Roxana. J.S. Robillard agrees this murderer is not a good person. He was being sarcastic in response to another poster who also lost someone in this tragedy.
The SJI piece explains: “When he finally emerged a few hours later, authorities said an officer shot and killed him after a quick exchange of gunfire.”
While it might be fair to criticize the reporter for misleadingly inserting distance between the suspect’s emergence and his firing upon the police, we can’t know for certain whether to attribute this inaccuracy to the reporter’s well-established bias, her reportorial skill, or the abysmal job done by SJPD’s typically abysmal press information unit. To show you what I mean, here is a quote from a KTVU news video, shot the day after the incident:
” …he pointed a firearm in the direction of officers, at which point one of our officers returned fire, striking the suspect… the suspect was pronounced deceased a short time later.”
One can shoot someone pointing a firearm, but can only “return fire” after being fired upon. That the suspect shot one of the officers made obvious the fact that he’d done more than merely point his firearm, thus rendering the PIO’s incorrect and incompetent use of the English language a disgrace and disservice to this community. Mind you, this statement was made the day after the incident, with at least one officer known to have been hit. Even if you accept that composition errors can occur, a matter of this gravity demands competent proof-reading. The quality of this work I would rate as 4th grade — a reflection upon both the officer who prepared it and his supervisor.
Wasn’t it just a few months ago that one of these same bumblers erroneously inserted “he reached toward his waistband” into the retelling of the circumstances that led to an officer involved shooting? That screw-up was a godsend to local cop-haters, as it allowed them to unfairly malign — as a liar and murderer — a street cop who’d demonstrated great courage and dedication to duty in chasing down a vicious killer. Someone’s head should’ve rolled, but I bet it didn’t.
Also, what’s the aversion to the word dead? I understand the extra syllable in “deceased” makes one sound infinitely more intelligent, but when it comes to a corpse just beginning to cool, “dead” is, well, dead on. “The suspect was pronounced dead” — what could be clearer? Weren’t all of us holding out for a civilized future just jolted once again with the annual “Day of the Dead” news coverage? If the word dead passes muster with the hyper-emotional Hispanic community (never shy about condemning whatever English word if finds offensive), it should be safe enough for use in a press release.
If both the police chief (who is to public speaking what Hillary Clinton is to charm school) and the assistant chief (who can neither see nor be seen when behind a lectern) endorse the continuation of this comedy act, then I suggest the PIO’s outfit themselves as luchadores — the Mexican wrestlers that no one dares take seriously.
FINFAN
I agree with you that the reporter should have made a greater effort to be more accurate. I, too, am tired of SJI’s “Pro-police” bias. Here’s how the article should have been written, so as to reflect SJI’s trademark objectivity:
“Tragedy struck yet again here in San Jose. An “immigration-ily handicapped” individual, who came here, looking for a better life, “became deceased” as a result of police insensitivity and gunfire. The “victim” was Hispanic. The race of the officers is unknown at this time but an unidentified, unnamed source phoned SJI anonymously and said that he believes that at least one of the officers may not have been “a person of color” and may have been the officer who pulled the trigger.
At this time, it is not known whether or not the police used any racial epithets during the incident or if “implicit bias” played a role. It is unclear whether or not police fired first, or if the “victim’s” gun fired by accident, after he was startled by the sudden appearance of the police. Police claim that one officer was supposedly, injured but it is unknown whether this was as a result of an accident or by some other means which the police were unfairly attributing to the “victim” firing his gun.
Following the shooting, a second Hispanic individual, this one female, was found inside the residence. Although the initial “victim” who “passed away” from police gunfire was the only other person either inside or anywhere near the residence at the time that the neighbors heard what police allege was gunfire, it is not known whether the initial “victim” had anything to do with the “deceased-ness” of the second victim or whether the second victim died from “lead poisoning”. Police claim that traces of lead were also found on some of the bullets in the gun found in the initial “victim’s” hand following the “police attack”.
Although she had no time to review any information at all regarding the “tragedy”, former IPA LaDoris Cordell, herself a survivor of “racial profiling”, vowed transparency and stated that police too often and too quickly return fire whenever they are shot at and that police may have over-reacted after one of their own was “supposedly” scratched by a stray bullet which Cordell believes, even without any basis, may not have even been fired by the “victim” and which an unnamed, anonymous source with no medical training stated had caused “only a flesh wound”. Cordell said she will be setting up a “blue ribbon committee”, co-chaired by Al Sharpton and Quentin Tarantino, to provide a transparent, unbiased search for the truth.
Cordell stated that she believes that all police officers should receive additional training in diversity, sensitivity, implicit bias, anger management, and prepare a 4 course meal of ethnic cuisine using only a garlic press and a toaster oven, speak at least 3 languages, live for a year with a family in a third world country, swim across the Rio Grande river, naked during the winter, and bathe a homeless person every week.,
“We need to have our officers be more sensitive and responsive to community concerns” Cordell stated. “It’s just too bad, that this time, it came too late”.
(I wonder if I should copyright this so SJI doesn’t use it as a template for all their future police related stories).
Careful J.S. ROBILLARD, I wouldnt put it past the staff at SJI/Metro manufacture some claim that you hacked into their “news article” generating machine as a basis for accusing you of plagiarism. (ya I think they are that bad)
Police always say what is convenient for them, where are the videos how can they prove that Lionel started the shooting? Of course they will talk trash.
I will always remember you Lionel Police can say whatever they want but the truth will come out sooner or later.
Ah yes the conspiracy theorist! Yes I am thinking that the newest guy in the SWAT unit drew the unlucky short straw and had to take a “throw down” bullet by one of his “buds” to protect the “bad shoot” Not only is your heart broken, but your brain doesn’t work very well either.
G B