Fifteen of the 26 bullets Lompoc police officers fired at 32-year-old Travis Daniel Carlon on Oct. 9, 2021, struck his body, according to a recently released investigation from the Santa Barbara County District Attorney’s Office.
The office ruled Carlon’s death a “justifiable homicide.”
Senior Deputy District Attorney Anne Nudson said the DA’s Office concluded that the three officers involved in the case were acting within their rights when they pulled their respective triggers. Nudson said the number of shots fired isn’t considered excessive force because criminal offense laws (penal codes) don’t follow specific numbers, rather they follow the situation at hand.
“A hundred shots could be justified, just depending on the penal code. While 26 seems like a high number to some people … it’s not about the type of force used, it’s about the totality of the circumstances in which the force was used,” she said. “We are looking at the circumstances and then analyzing the penal codes.”
That October night, the Lompoc Police Department responded to a 911 domestic disturbance call at 6:30 p.m. saying Carlon held a gun to his girlfriend’s head, according to the report from the DA’s Office.
“Officers Calderon, Mendoza, and Molina” arrived at the scene around 6:40 p.m., got his girlfriend safely out of the house, and commanded Carlon to exit his home, the report stated. At 8:26 p.m., Carlon exited the house, pointed a gun toward the responding officers, and officers opened fire, according to the DA’s Office. Carlon received medical aid but was pronounced dead at the scene.
The legal analysis included in the report explains that an officer can use “deadly force” if they believe there’s a possibility of death or injury to themselves or to other officers, or if they believe the person will cause death or injury unless they are arrested.
“When Carlon came out of his residence and pointed his gun at officers, after being given multiple commands to come out and surrender, he created a reasonable fear of death or great bodily injury in the minds of [the responding officers],” the DA’s report said.
Officers located a revolver at the bottom of the front porch with two bullets in the chamber and recovered a suicide note for Carlon’s children during their search of his home, the DA’s Office said. Neighbors also recorded the shooting and posted it to Facebook Live.
“In the video that captures the time of the shooting, the video showed Carlon come out of his residence and point a black object at law enforcement. The video captured the sound of the shots being fired by law enforcement. The video also captured one of the witnesses on the video saying, ‘He pointed a gun at them, what do you expect?’ a second male voice responds ‘cop suicide,’” the report said.
Witnesses removed the video from Facebook Live “almost immediately,” and all three witnesses were interviewed, the report said.
Lompoc Police Department officials told the Sun they couldn’t comment on the case. Senior Deputy District Attorney Nudson said while the case is considered done as far as the criminal side of the law is concerned, residents could still file a civil lawsuit, Nudson explained.
“Anyone can sue anyone, but any sort of civil remedy has nothing to do with us. Criminal prosecution is our findings on this case based on the evidence we have to date. Anything in criminal prosecution can change,” she said. “I have no personal basis to think that in this particular case, but criminal prosecution is a living, breathing thing.”
This article appears in Mar 31 – Apr 7, 2022.