sbsheriff
Update by the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office
January 17, 2024
The Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office is releasing the names of the suspect and deputies from the officer involved shooting that occurred on Saturday, January 13, 2024.
The suspect is identified as 32-year-old Wesley Gerald Klotthor from Santa Maria. The deputies involved in the shooting are Detective Nicholas Adomaitis and Detective Michael Savey.
The deputies have been placed on paid administrative leave, in accordance with Sheriff’s Office policy. This incident remains under active investigation.
Fatal Officer-Involved Shooting in Santa Maria During Family Dispute
By the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office
January 14, 2024
Sheriff’s Detectives are investigating a fatal officer involved shooting. On Saturday, January 13, 2024, at approximately 5:28 pm, deputies responded to the 800-block of Blake Street in Santa Maria for a report of a family dispute.
Deputies learned that the male suspect brandished a firearm during an argument. Family members were able to flee from the residence and call for help.
Deputies surrounded the home and evacuated neighboring residents for their safety. Additional units from the Sheriff’s Office Special Enforcement Team, County Air Support, K9s as well as CHP and Santa Maria Police responded to assist. Over the next several hours, negotiators attempted to deescalate and stabilize the situation.
At approximately 9:35 p.m., deputies encountered the suspect in the backyard of the residence where an officer involved shooting occurred. The suspect was pronounced deceased at the scene. The involved deputies did not require medical attention.
This investigation is ongoing, and the names of the involved parties are not yet available for release.
Sheriff’s detectives will investigate the circumstances of the shooting, as well as conduct an administrative review of the incident in accordance with policy.
this is why you don’t call the sheriff department. for anything. they do not deescalate, they shoot…to kill. SB County Sheriff department has been involved in more shootings and deaths than our bad guys have caused. i support our local PD 100% but Sheriff Brown hires trigger happy thugs. Tens of millions in payouts of our tax money to victims families over the past decade.
Tough one. In dangerous situations like this, people should be able to call for help. Problem is, cops aren’t always the best to help. THIS is why we need to reallocate funds from military style armament s for cops to mental health crisis professionals or at least on advanced training for cops so they can deal with this appropriately.
This guy was in a home, alone. There are many other ways to deescalate a situation like this other than entering the home with guns drawn, which is what I’m sure they did as it’s literally what they do when responding to an armed person.
Another tough one: You want or expect civilian mental health professionals to respond to domestic violence scenes or stick around once it’s known there are weapons?
I sure don’t.
I say this as a sympathetic human and as an ex-county employee who had to tell customers they were getting a citation, explain it and write it up before a sworn employee signed it.
It can be scary. I would never ask that of mental health pro’s; they’re already at huge risk. Nor would I ask it of the role I used to work — it was wrong.
I agree that there are no easy answers; maybe no answers at all. I certainly have no solutions.
It’s been years; I”m done protecting the previous animal shelter hierarchy. I may be outing myself, but only to a few.
Clerks issued citations to owners redeeming their dogs. They were fix-it tickets that were thrown away if the owners licensed their dogs in the weeks we gave them to do so. Some went to court, I don’t know what happened to them.
I was once disciplined for redeeming a dog to a Hispanic man but not getting info about the owner of the dog, his friend, whose dog was impounded at the same time and place. What the hell? I was supposed to interrogate this man who was paying fees and stepping up to redeem his dog from the shelter?!
I see it’s a whole new world there. I appreciated my job and my customers; what I could do for pet owners. I did a lot of hard work, many showings of deceased animals; dealing with bereft owners. It just got harder over the years, not helped by having about 8 supervisors in five years of employment.
That’s why I’ve argued over the years that government work is not easy and is underpaid. I was just a clerk, easy to abuse at a public counter.