911 caller from brutal confrontation comes forward

On Wednesday, NewsChannel 5 spoke to one of the 911 callers reporting a man trying to throw a woman into the street. It later led to a violent confrontation between Jose Velasco and several Salinas police officers.

Many have seen how Friday’s confrontation ended, but it’s what happened moments before that people are still learning about. Selena, a Salinas resident who only wanted to be known by her first name, said she and her daughter were traveling on No. Main Street when they saw Jose Velasco, 28, acting strange. Selena said she believed he was high.

“He’s standing there,” Selena said, “Looking at traffic, and slowly he starts tapping his chest like warriors do before battle. Then, he’s there in the middle of the street, stopping traffic.”

They called 911 when they saw a woman get involved. Velasco’s mother, Rita Acosta said her son was trying to protect her from whatever he was seeing in his mind, claiming he has a mental illness. Selena said she saw otherwise.

“He starts tossing her into incoming traffic that’s going northbound,” Selena said. “They’re struggling. She kind of gets back to the center divider. He never lets go. They continue to struggle back and forth, tosses her onto the ground into incoming traffic.”

Selena said Velasco’s outburst didn’t end even when officers arrives on scene, saying he looked like he was battling to the very end.

“But he continues to bat at them,” Selena said. “Kicking, hitting and it just continued. At one point, he kind of got under control. But then he proceeded to scoot himself to the street again, and that’s when they started to get him under control.”

Selena said she believes police were justified in using force, especially because the public’s safety was at risk.

“Police officers are not trained to fight it out and let the best man win,” Selena said. “They’re there to protect us. They didn’t know she was his mom. Had it been a child or another person a lot weaker, had the cars not stopped, that person could’ve gotten run over.”

Selena said her message to the community is to see the whole picture before you pass judgement on a 90 second video.

The department is investigation whether the use of force in this case was justified. No word how long it will take to complete.