The District Attorney’s Office reviewed five fatal law enforcement shootings and three in-custody deaths dating back to 2024, finding that none of the police officers and sheriff’s deputies involved in those incidents bear criminal liability for their actions.

In each of the shootings, county prosecutors determined the officers and deputies were legally justified because the armed people they shot “posed an imminent threat of death or serious bodily injury” to the law enforcement personnel or bystanders, according to the findings released Friday.

Hostage-taking in Morena

San Diego police officers Matthew Steinbach, Michael Howells and Justin Tellam were cleared in the fatal shooting of 33-year-old Nicholas Trammell on May 20, 2024. According to prosecutors, Trammell flashed a knife at a store clerk in the Morena neighborhood and then held a homeless man hostage at knifepoint. When the bystander dropped to his knees, the three officers opened fire, shooting 14 rounds at Trammell, who prosecutors said was armed with a kitchen knife and a pair of scissors.

National City shootout

San Diego sheriff’s Deputy Doug Akers was cleared of killing Gene Stewart in a shootout on Sept. 27, 2024, in the parking lot of a car dealership in National City.

According to the District Attorney’s Office, Akers was working undercover as part of a task force when Stewart, 46, ran from uniformed law enforcement officers and then hid inside an unlocked tow truck. Akers and another officer approached the truck when Stewart fired a shot, shattering the truck’s passenger window and spraying glass in Akers’ face, prosecutors said.

Akers stepped back, returned fire into the truck and continued shooting as Stewart exited the vehicle, according to the District Attorney’s Office.

Fiesta Island attack

Victor Bocaya, an officer with the San Diego Community College District Police Department, was cleared in the fatal shooting of Brian Maloney on Oct. 2, 2024, on Fiesta Island. Bocaya was not on duty at the time, but he flashed his police badge and identified himself as an off-duty officer when Maloney, 41, approached him while angrily shouting, according to the District Attorney’s Office.

Maloney allegedly told Bocaya he’d been harassed by police, then pulled out a knife with a 4-inch blade and repeatedly stabbed the off-duty officer in the neck and upper torso, prosecutors said. Bocaya, a 25-year police veteran, pulled his personal gun from his pocket and shot Maloney one time in the head, killing him.

El Cajon truck attack

El Cajon police Sgt. Kevin Maxwell and Officer Evan Drescher were cleared in the fatal shooting of Benjamin Grube, who carried out an unprovoked attack on police with a Toyota Tundra pickup on Dec. 11, 2024, in the parking lot outside El Cajon police headquarters, prosecutors said.

Grube, a 24-year-old La Mesa resident, struck Maxwell with the truck, launching him into the air, then reversed the vehicle and drove at the sergeant again, according to prosecutors. The truck narrowly missed Maxwell as he and Drescher fired more than 30 rounds, at least seven of which struck Grube.

Maxwell was taken to a hospital for treatment of a concussion and other injuries and released later that day, authorities previously reported. Investigators previously said Grube had suicidal ideations, harbored anti-police sentiments and was pulled from the truck covered in gasoline.

East Village apartment shooting

San Diego police officers Gavin Isa and Eric Moreno were cleared for fatally shooting Andrew Engel on Jan. 13, 2025, inside his East Village apartment.

According to newly released details from the District Attorney’s Office, a roommate and friends had confronted the 26-year-old Engel after allegedly finding on his phone what appeared to be surreptitious recordings of people in a bathroom, as well as images of naked children. The roommate had already given Engel’s phone to police, and his friends were trying to convince him to turn himself in when he barricaded himself inside a bedroom and slit his wrists, prompting the friends to call 911, the District Attorney’s Office said.

Shortly after Isa and Moreno arrived at the apartment, Engel emerged from the bedroom holding a knife above his head and quickly walked toward the officers, who each fired six rounds.

Lakeside WRAP death

In an incident that appears to have been previously undisclosed by local authorities, 51-year-old Angela Camacho became unresponsive and fell unconscious while being arrested and restrained by sheriff’s deputies on Aug. 14, 2024, in Lakeside.

According to the District Attorney’s Office, Camacho was acting erratically and resisting the deputies, prompting them to use a WRAP device to restrain her. But once the restrictive device was on her, she stopped breathing, prosecutors said. Paramedics performed CPR and were able to bring back her pulse, but she was taken to a hospital and never regained consciousness or recovered, and she died on Sept. 16, 2024.

Deputies Christian Anderson, Zachary Dalton, Christopher Bearss, Kristin Harris and Miguel Espinoza were involved in restraining Camacho. Prosecutors determined they “did not apply unreasonable or excessive force,” and therefore bear no state criminal liability.

Oceanside suicide

On Oct. 8, 2024, a 26-year-old resident of Baja California who was visiting a relative in Oceanside attempted to take his own life, according to prosecutors. The relative called 911, and Oceanside police Officer Israel Doroteo responded to the home and applied pressure to the man’s self-inflicted wounds until paramedics arrived, prosecutors said.

Doroteo helped hold the man’s hands while paramedics provided medical treatment, then later helped paramedics in an ambulance after the man became combative on the way to a hospital, prosecutors said. The man eventually died by what an autopsy determined was suicide; prosecutors determined Doroteo’s efforts to provide assistance were reasonable.

Star Bar restraint death

Forty-year-old Gabriel Garza died on Jan. 25, 2025, outside the Star Bar in downtown San Diego’s Gaslamp Quarter. According to prosecutors, he began acting erratically inside the bar, including fighting with a friend and biting a security guard. The guard, the friend and a bystander restrained Garza on the ground outside the bar for 26 minutes until San Diego police officers Jacob Phipps and Noah McLemore arrived, took over restraining him and placed him in handcuffs.

Garza lost consciousness during the arrest and was taken by paramedics to a hospital, where he died. Prosecutors determined that Phipps and McLemore bear no criminal liability in Garza’s death, finding that they “used only the minimal amount of force necessary in the situation.”