Authorities had previously responded to mental health calls five times since January to the Apple Valley home of a 15-year-old boy who was fatally shot by deputies over the weekend, San Bernardino County Sheriff Shannon Dicus said during a Wednesday, March 13, news conference, calling the teen’s death a failure of the “social safety net.”
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Deputies were called to the residence in the 13400 block of Iroquois Road on Saturday after a family member reported the teen was attempting to attack people in the home, according to a partial 911 call released by the sheriff’s department. The woman on the call told dispatch that the teen, Ryan Gainer, was hitting his sister.
“They’ve got to take him in, they’ve got to,” the woman told dispatch, adding that the teen had broken a window in the home and had a piece of glass near his neck. A loud commotion could also be heard in the background.
When the first arriving deputy attempted to enter the front door of the home, Gainer began charging towards him with a five-foot-long garden tool with a bladed edge, according to body-worn camera footage release by authorities on Wednesday.
With his gun raised, the deputy shouted “Hey get back! Get back or you’re gonna get shot” as he attempted to retreat outside the house. Gainer continued to run towards the deputy, still armed with the tool, as the deputy turned around, aiming his gun behind him, the footage shows.
A second deputy arrived just as Gainer and the first deputy exited the house, and at least three rounds were then fired between the deputies, Dicus said.
Family members then rushed out of the house, with some shouting at deputies “Why would you shoot my baby?” and “Where was your Taser?”
Deputies attempted to perform live-saving measures on Gainer, who was later pronounced dead at the scene.
An attorney representing the family, Dewitt Lacy, previously told ABC7 News that Gainer had autism and was acting out after a dispute over doing household chores.
“Ryan is a 15-year-old with autism, and sometimes in order to release stress or if he he’s a little too worked up, he’ll go on a run,” Lacy told ABC7. “When he came back there was a dispute that arose because he wanted to play video games, and he needed to do his chores, and he started acting out.”
Lacy did not respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.
Responding to criticism of the shooting, Dicus said the deputy only had seconds to react, regardless of whether he was aware Gainer had autism.
“What we really need to look at is — even if we had the best of healthcare, the best psychologists, in that immediate interaction — that seven seconds,” Dicus said. “There are no magic words. We pay law enforcement officers to stop threats, to stop violence.”
“We need to understand in this circumstance — whether we knew, didn’t know, had the best resources available to us — this is a reactionary time.”
“We’ve been to this residence five times,” Dicus said.
The previous encounters between health care or law enforcement personnel and Gainer this year ended each time with Gainer being taken to a mental health facility with no use of force, Dicus said.
“That’s my point of saying our social safety network is not working and needs to be strengthened,” Dicus said. “There is no reason for law enforcement be the ones that end up having to get involved in these crises specifically when we’ve off-ramped these individuals to social services that are supposed to be designed to take care of their mental health needs.”
Staff writer Mona Darwish contributed to this story.