May 12, 2009
Mercury News
By Sean Webby
San Jose police officers Matthew Blackerby and Brian Jeffrey
arrived at the bloody and chaotic Berryessa neighborhood home
Sunday not knowing the attacker lurking somewhere inside was
mentally ill. Even if they had known, police officials said
Tuesday, they would not have acted any differently.
The officers shot and killed Daniel Pham as he threatened
them with a knife, after having already slashed his brother.
Family members said in interviews after the shooting that
Pham was mentally ill and that they had told that to the responding
officers, begging them not to kill him.
But police declined to confirm that officers were told Pham
was mentally ill.
"If a person is holding a dangerous weapon, officers
need to take immediate action to deal with that," said
Sgt. Ronnie Lopez, a police spokesman. "They need to
take this action in self-defense or in defense of another
person's life."
Tuesday was the first time San Jose police have given a description
of what happened leading up to the city's first officer-involved
fatal shooting since 2006.
Police described the officers responding to multiple 911
calls and a scene with an injured victim and a dangerous and
armed suspect. The first dispatch the patrol officers received
was not of a mentally ill suspect, but of an armed and violent
man who was ''high on drugs" and "out of control,"
police said.
As he was arriving, one of the officers asked the dispatcher
to check if police had any previous contacts at that address.
The dispatcher said there had been prior police contacts there
with a man with mental issues. But neither the dispatcher
nor the officer associated that with Pham because the previous
contact went by an Americanized name — and not the Vietnamese
name the officers had been given.
Police declined to give many more details of what happened
inside the home other than what has already been reported:
On Sunday, just before noon, Brian Pham had been attacked
by his 27-year-old brother, who suffered from mental illness
and was acting erratic that day, his family said. Unprovoked,
Daniel sliced Brian's neck from ear to ear with a knife, family
and police said. Brian told his girlfriend to lock herself
in a bedroom at the family home on Branbury Way and call 911,
Pham family members said.
When the two San Jose police officers arrived, they told
Daniel Pham numerous times to drop the knife, according to
police. He did not. They Tasered him, and then they ended
up shooting him dead.
Police declined to confirm that the brother's girlfriend
was trapped inside the home, something the Pham family told
the Mercury News on Monday.
Neither Brian Pham, 29, nor his girlfriend, who has not been
identified, wanted to speak to the Mercury News on Tuesday,
according to Vinh Pham, Brian's 58-year-old father.
They are too devastated to talk, Vinh Pham said.
"They have a big problem in their heads," Pham
said, apologizing for his broken English. "I'm afraid.
How can they live in the future? They think that they killed
Daniel. They're sorry they called police."
According to Vinh Pham, no one from the police department
has yet to come to his house to give him any information about
the death of his son, whose Mass will be celebrated on Friday
at 10:45 a.m. at St. Patrick's Proto-Cathedral Church on East
Santa Clara Street, with a burial service afterward.
City Councilman Kansen Chu weighed in Tuesday, saying he
''will make sure that the investigation is full and complete."
"I am saddened by the events that transpired and resulted
in a fatal outcome," Chu said in a written statement,
"my heartfelt sympathy goes out to the family."
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