10 MONTEREY COUNTY WEEKLY june 8-14, 2023 www.montereycountyweekly.com news In the wake of a nine-hour standoff in Salinas on Wednesday, May 31—one that began with the shooting of a sheriff’s deputy during a routine eviction call, saw hundreds of law enforcement officers respond to the scene, and ended with the death of the suspect—it’s emerged that the Monterey County Sheriff’s Office received advance warning that the person who shot the deputy was likely mentally ill and potentially armed. A sheriff’s deputy filed a search warrant in Monterey County Superior Court on the same day indicating that the Sheriff’s Office had received information that 67-year-old Erin Howard Fischer was potentially armed. The warrant quotes from an email received from a law firm representing the landlord, nonprofit Interim, Inc. “[My client] asked me to apprise the Sheriff’s Department that members of Interim staff are informed and believe Mr. Fischer has an active gun license and may have guns in his possession…please be aware that during the eviction process, Mr. Fischer may also evidence an aggressive demeanor,” the quoted email reads. Investigators say Fischer twice shot Deputy Jesse Grant while Grant was serving him a court-authorized eviction notice at his second-story apartment at 29 Sun St. in Salinas. The incident triggered a nine-hour standoff with police after Fischer barricaded himself in the apartment, which culminated in Fischer being fatally shot. Grant, 40, underwent surgery for his injuries and was released from the hospital; he is expected to survive. Fischer’s apartment was in a building owned and operated by Interim Inc., a nonprofit that provides affordable housing and support services to people suffering from mental illness. Interim Executive Director Rhiyan Quiton declines to comment on the circumstances around the eviction notice, citing the ongoing investigation. But Quiton says Interim “provided as much information as we had available” to the Sheriff’s Office in advance of the eviction, “as we would in any circumstance in working with law enforcement entities.” In statements released as the standoff was ongoing, Monterey County officials, including Sheriff Tina Nieto, described the serving of the eviction notice as a routine call. They said that when Grant requested additional backup at 7:56am, seven minutes after arriving at the apartment, “It was not an emergency situation at that point.” Grant called for non-emergency backup after Fischer did not answer the door. Less than an hour later, Fischer shot Grant and also fired at two other deputies who had arrived as backup. It remains unclear whether Grant and the other deputies at the scene were aware that Fischer may have been mentally unstable and armed when they arrived. Nieto declined to comment on an ongoing investigation. In general, she says, “We are always looking at what are best practices, and did we follow our own policies.” Fischer continued firing at law enforcement throughout the standoff, with more than a dozen officers from the Sheriff’s Office and Salinas Police Department returning fire, according to the DA’s Office. Fischer was armed with a total of three semi-automatic assault rifles, two bolt-action rifles and two handguns, and shot down seven surveillance drones deployed by law enforcement at the scene. He wore camouflaged military apparel with loaded magazines, a helmet and a gas mask, and was holding an AK-47 assault rifle when he was fatally shot in the head just after 5:30pm, according to the DA’s account. Nieto said authorities had repeatedly attempted to get Fischer to peacefully surrender. Fischer had a publicly documented history of felony offenses, mental illness and firearms possession. In 2013, the Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office arrested him near his home in Corralitos after neighbors reported that he had ranted about weapons, explosives and his experience in the military, according to a Santa Cruz Sentinel report at the time. Deputies found a loaded handgun, a rifle and ammunition in his possession. Fischer subsequently faced felony charges of carrying a loaded firearm in a vehicle, as well as being a convicted felon in possession of firearms and ammunition—with deputies citing his prior arrests for assault with a deadly weapon, possession of firearms and possession of explosives, according to the Sentinel. Fischer then spent time in Atascadero State Hospital, a maximum-security psychiatric hospital that houses inmates with mental illness. During his time at Atascadero, he filed a lawsuit in federal district court seeking possession of the historic Winchester Mystery House in San Jose, claiming that he had purchased the property for over $2 million in 1974; the lawsuit was dismissed in 2014. That year, Santa Cruz County rejected a claim filed by Fischer that sought compensation for confiscated property; the document contained several pages of unintelligible writing in which Fischer repeated his claim to the Winchester Mystery House and also stated that he was gifted property by Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, among other rants. It is not immediately clear when Fischer was released from Atascadero, how he came to secure the Salinas apartment, how he procured his firearms, and whether he was on psychiatric medication at the time of the shooting. Quiton declined to comment on specifics, citing confidentiality and privacy guidelines. District Attorney Jeannine Pacioni’s office is investigating the shooting, as is standard practice. The DA’s office is focusing on law enforcement’s use of lethal force in Fischer’s killing. “Our objective is quite narrow: It is to determine whether law enforcement had the right to use the force that they used in this situation,” Pacioni says. “We’re doing an investigation into the officers who discharged their firearm and whether they had the lawful right to do that.” (Such investigations are standard procedure after a law enforcement officer fires a weapon.) To that end, authorities have been collecting physical evidence at the scene of the incident, with FBI crime scene units on hand aiding that work. Investigators are also in the process of interviewing all 18 officers who discharged their weapons, including Grant, and “breaking down the officers’ behaviors as far as what steps were involved in the interaction,” Pacioni says. She stresses that prosecutors will not “make judgments about what the police could have done better or not” on the day. “We’re interested in all of the information and we want to get all of the facts, but that won’t go toward whether the officers had a lawful right to use force in this situation,” she says. “It may go toward a policy or a procedure; it may be a learning opportunity.” About 150 law enforcement officials from local, state and federal agencies responded, including SWAT teams and crisis negotiators from the FBI. Life or Death Monterey County Sheriff’s Office had warning that deputy’s shooter was mentally ill and possibly armed. By Rey Mashayekhi “We want to get all of the facts.” Daniel Dreifuss
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