DA review looks at drug use and deadly police shootings

UPDATE 7/17/2017 5:55 p.m.:

Two recent reviews are looking at drugs and deadly police shootings.

The San Diego County District Attorney’s Office studied 358 police shootings over the course of 20 years (1993-2012) and found 33-percent of the people shot had meth in their system. It was by far the predominant drug connected to officer-involved shootings.

The Monterey County District Attorney’s Office also analyzed data, looking at 13 deadly police shootings from 2013 to now.

“Over the last four years, we found that 62-percent of the people who had been shot by police locally, 62-percent had methamphetamine in their system,” said Berkley Brannon, chief assistant deputy attorney for the Monterey County District Attorney’s Office.

Toxicology reports from other deadly shootings found two other people were under the influence of alcohol, one of them also marijuana. One person had taken prescription drugs. Two had clean toxicology reports.

Two of the cases that involved meth included Carlos Mejia and Frank Alvarado, Jr.

The most recent case happened in January, with the deadly shooting of 16 year old Marlon Rodas in Salinas. Police responded to a call on Terrace Street after neighbors said he was armed with a knife and acting strange. Several non-lethal attempts to subdue him failed. After falling to the ground, he tried to get up and came at police with a knife, forcing them to open fire.

Toxicology reports show Rodas had a significant amount of methamphetamine in his system.

“All I can tell you is the minimum toxic level where it’s potentially toxic, he had five times that amount in his system,” Brannon said. “He was well within toxic levels, which means it’s a level that could potentially be fatal.”

Eddie Hathcock is a drug counselor at Sun Street Centers in Seaside. While drugs affect people differently, as a recovering meth user, he knows how drugs can distort a person’s thinking.

“They start to believe they’re hearing voices in my head that really aren’t true,” Hathcock said. “They’re seeing things that really aren’t there but what happens is they get into this place of fear and they get scared and they start to believe that everyone is out to hurt them, so they react accordingly.”

Methamphetamine can cause violent behavior, confusion and paranoia and hallucinations. A lack of sleep and food can also compound the effects.

Authorities said because Rodas was a teenager at the time of the incident, the effects of the drugs may have been more severe.

ORIGINAL POST:

The Monterey County District Attorney’s Office says a four year review of deadly police shootings in Monterey County found 62-percent of the people killed were high on methamphetamine.

That includes the most recent case involving 16-year-old Marlon Rodas, who was armed with a knife when he was shot and killed in January.

On Friday, the Monterey County District Attorney’s Office announced no charges would be filed against the officers in that case.

On January 18, witnesses called police saying Rodas was armed with a knife and acting strange. Police fired baton rounds to try and disarm him, and also used a Taser.

Methamphetamine can cause violent behavior, confusion and paranoia and hallucinations.

Toxicology results found Rodas has a potentially toxic level of meth in his system. Because he was a teenager, the drug may have been more severe.

KION’s Mariana Hicks will have more on this story tonight at 6.