Officer Detained Man Day Before Police Shot Him

VENTURA — The day before a mentally ill man was shot to death by police, an officer stopped him and offered to take him to the county’s mental health center, Ventura police investigators said Wednesday.

Officer Chuck Watson, 32, who struggled with William Anthony Ramos moments before his death Saturday, had detained him a day earlier, alarmed by his erratic behavior.

Ramos, 29, declined his offer of help, and Watson let him go. “He wasn’t acting in a fashion that was a bookable offense,” said Lt. Carl Handy, a spokesman for the department.

After Saturday’s shooting, family members said police had ignored their pleas a day earlier to seek help for Ramos, who had stopped taking medication for paranoid schizophrenia.

Family members could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

Watson noticed Ramos’ conduct while on patrol in midtown Ventura on Friday and recognized him from previous encounters, Handy said. Ramos had been jailed and hospitalized for outbursts related to his illness in the past.

Watson saw Ramos again the next morning dodging traffic on Telephone Road near the 101 Drive-In.

“He stopped him again, and again he offered to take him to mental health,” Handy said.

Officer Chris Davis, 31, pulled up in another patrol car and stood behind Watson as he questioned Ramos, he said.

“Then--as is routine--[Watson] started to pat him down, and he stopped when he felt a hard object,” Handy said. “That’s when Ramos went after him.”

Watson was knocked to the ground by Ramos, who then grabbed for the officer’s 9-millimeter semiautomatic handgun, Handy said. Davis shot Ramos three times with his .45-caliber service revolver. Watson was also struck in the left hand.

“I can’t say exactly how close Davis was when he fired, but he was close in,” Handy said.

Crime analysts are attempting to see if Ramos’ fingerprints are on Watson’s gun, he said. Handy did not know what object Ramos was carrying, but said it was not a gun.

In some instances involving mentally ill suspects, police call in the county’s 20-member Mental Health Crisis and Emergency Team.

On Saturday, though, it appears police did not have time to call out the team of counselors and specialists, said Steve Kaplan, director of the county’s Behavioral Health Department.

“There are situations that are much too spontaneous . . . to give officers the time to call,” Kaplan said.

Although he could not comment specifically on whether Ramos was ever a patient in the county system, Kaplan said typically in cases where former patients have died, his department conducts an internal investigation of what led to the death.

“To review our standards of care, to see if we did all that we could do,” he said.