Police release surveillance footage of plainclothes officer-involved fatal shooting

San Jose police on Wednesday released surveillance footage and more details from a shooting by a plainclothes officer that killed a man who allegedly pointed a gun at the officer Monday night.

Demetrius Stanley died in the shooting shortly before 9:45 p.m. Monday in the 1100 block of Tofts Drive, where plainclothes officers had gone on a surveillance operation related to a prior criminal case involving Stanley, San Jose Police Chief Anthony Mata said at a briefing Wednesday.

Mata’s briefing came after a large protest Tuesday night by people angry about the shooting of Stanley, who the chief said had been arrested and charged for a road rage incident in March that had the plainclothes officers out in the area of Tofts Drive as part of a follow-up investigation Monday night.

Stanley came out of his house armed with a handgun, and a plainclothes officer heard the weapon being “racked and loaded” and ran away down the street, Mata said.

Stanley then stopped and walked back, passing an unmarked vehicle where a second plainclothes officer was seated. The officer knew Stanley was armed so did not get out to confront him, but Stanley allegedly pulled open the driver’s side door and pointed the gun at the officer, prompting the officer to fire his handgun at Stanley, according to the chief.

Mata said a handgun recovered at the scene was a 9mm “ghost gun” with an illegal high-capacity extended magazine.

The chief said the officers were not wearing body cameras due to the “non-enforcement nature” of their work that night, although the Police Department has released the surveillance footage recorded from a nearby building leading up to the officer opening fire.

Mata said:

“Our officers did not want or anticipate a confrontation that night and did everything possible to avoid having one.”

The chief acknowledged that the officers did not say they were with the Police Department. When asked by a reporter whether Stanley knew that it was police officers he was encountering, the chief said he “can’t speak to what his thoughts were” but added:

“If someone sees something that’s out of the ordinary in their neighborhood, to confront someone with a firearm whether it’s officers or not, I think that’s dangerous.”

The police shooting will be investigated by the department as well as the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office, as is standard protocol.