Police kill boy allegedly wielding knife

Salinas police shot and killed a teenage boy who was allegedly wielding a butcher knife early Wednesday morning, according to the Monterey County District Attorney’s Office.

At 1:34 a.m., police responded to a 911 call reporting a suspicious person in the 600 block of Terrace Street, near Cesar Chavez Community Park.

An officer who arrived on scene four minutes later said a teenage boy was sharpening a butcher knife on the concrete sidewalk, Managing Deputy District Attorney Ed Hazel said.

When the boy started swinging the knife, the officer told him to drop it, but the boy did not comply and started to bang and hit a nearby shed with his fist.

Salinas firefighters responded and sprayed the boy with a fire hose to try to get him to drop the knife, but the tactic was unsuccessful, Hazel said.

Four police officers shot the boy with rubber bullets, and three officers deployed Taser stun guns, but the boy would not drop the knife.

The boy then started to wield the knife toward the officers, swinging it around wildly before running into a nearby home, Hazel said.

The officers followed the boy into the home and he approached them with the knife, so at 2:27 a.m., two officers shot and killed him with a standard-issue AR-15 rifle and a .45-caliber service weapon.

Investigators from the district attorney’s office have so far collected six cartridges from the rifle and two from the handgun, but have not determined how many struck the boy, Hazel said.

Investigators are interviewing several bystanders who Hazel said witnessed the incident.

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