Suspect shot in Fremont police officer-involved shooting identified
FREMONT, Calif. (KTVU and BCN) - Police in Fremont have identified the man injured Monday in an officer-involved shooting.
Police said Rolonte Simril, 27, was armed with a metal pipe when an officer with the Fremont Police Department shot him. He was arrested on Wednesday for suspicion of branshishing a weapon and obstructing/resisting arrest, according to police.
It happened at about 4 p.m. on Monday at a shopping center near the intersection of Mowry Avenue and Blacow Road. The man who was shot was rushed to a hospital, and Fremont police were not releasing information about his condition.
They say he had been brandishing a piece of pipe in the parking lot, and threatening people with it.
Cell phone video in the moments after the shooting, shows the man on the ground, writhing in pain.
"He was crying on the ground and he was bleeding on the ground, shot in the shoulder and the stomach, " witness Gemina Marin-Robinson told KTVU, "and for me as a mother, it was not justified."
Marin-Robinson claims the man was holding in hands high in a gesture of surrender, when he was shot.
The confrontation happened in a parking lot sandwiched between a Lucky supermarket and an Orchard Supply Hardware store.
"I'm not sure if he cooperated or not," another witness, Andrew Pacheco, told KTVU.
Pacheco was at work, loading a customer's car at the hardware store pick-up window, when he noticed a commotion.
"I seen the officer chasing the dude, and he told him to stop and drop something, and by the time I got in the middle of the parking lot, he yelled at me to get out of the way, and that's when he opened fire," described Pacheco.
Fremont Police say it all began when someone in the shopping center flagged down a passing patrol officer.
"This unfolded quickly, within one to two minutes," explained Fremont Police Sgt. Ricardo Cortes. "The initial information the officer received was only that there was somebody waving a pipe around, threatening people."
That officer found the man, and pursued him on foot across the parking lot.
"The officer was chasing the young black man, and he was telling him to stop, drop it, stop, drop it, and I wondered, 'drop what?'" said Marin-Robinson.
She did not see a pipe- about a foot long- until the shots rang out and the man fell.
Witnesses described hearing three shots.
Police would not confirm the number, only confirming that one officer fired multiple shots, and that a weapon, the pipe, was recovered.
"Interviews will take some significant time," police spokesperson Geneva Bosques told KTVU, "and we had multiple witnesses who were there, and we are interviewing witnesses now. We will also interview the officer Monday or Tuesday."
Following protocol, the unidentified officer has been placed on paid leave pending a review of the incident.
Stores in the vicinity remained open throughout the investigation.
"You would have thought people would be panicked and running and scattering," noted truck driver Edward Leu, who was delivering groceries when the shooting occurred.
"But there was nothing like that. I think people were kind of shocked it was the middle of the day, late-afternoon."
No information has been released about the identity of the wounded man.