In January 2023, a Bristol police officer shot a suspect who was accused of stealing a Bristol police cruiser and then crashing into Palma’s Diner, according to officials.
In January 2023, a Bristol police officer shot a suspect who was accused of stealing a Bristol police cruiser and then crashing into Palma’s Diner, according to officials.
The Office of the Inspector General has completed its report after investigating the shooting. On Wednesday, the office released several videos showing the shooting and the suspect driving off, then hitting the diner, and said they found that the “evidence is insufficient to establish beyond a reasonable doubt that the shooting was not justified and decided will take no further action.”
It was on the afternoon of Jan. 12, 2023, when, Jimmie Shoemaker-Gonzalez stole a Bristol Police Department cruiser that was parked on Quaker Lane and Bristol Police Officer Seth Petzing fired four rounds at the cruiser as Shoemaker-Gonzalez drove off, striking and wounding him, according to the Office of the Inspector General.
Shoemaker-Gonzalez was shot four times, twice in the thigh and twice in the left lower leg, according to the Office of the Inspector General report.
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After the gunshots were fired, Shoemaker-Gonzalez continued to drive for around two and half miles until crashing into Palma’s Diner on Stafford Avenue.
Hours before stealing the Bristol police cruiser, Shoemaker-Gonzalez had committed a carjacking in Hartford, according to officials.
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They said he approached a Dodge Durango that was parked in front of a convenience store in the 500 block of Park Street around 9:17 a.m., opened the door, grabbed the driver’s left arm and tried to pull him from the vehicle.
When the driver got out of the truck, they struggled and Shoemaker-Gonzalez swung a knife at the car owner, then cut the man’s forehead, according to officials. The vehicle owner then ran into the store and called 911.
Shoemaker-Gonzalez then drove off the SUV, officials said.
Later in the morning, he hit a snowplow on Scott Swamp Road in Farmington. He then abandoned the Durango after spinning out of control and hitting a fence and rock wall at the Westwood II Condominiums at 312 Scott Swamp Road, according to the report.
After abandoning the SUV, officials said, Shoemaker-Gonzalez tried to steal a Nissan Versa at knifepoint from the complex, but the door was locked and the driver drove off.
Then, around noon, Shoemaker-Gonzalez approached the owner of a RAV4 with a knife, cut the man’s arm and demanded the keys, according to the report. The driver eventually threw his keys away, ran back to his apartment and Shoemaker-Gonzalez drove off in a RAV4 and headed toward Bristol, officials said.
A police sergeant saw the RAV4 on Davis Drive in Bristol and parked behind it to keep Shoemaker-Gonzalez from leaving and told him to turn off the car and get out, but Shoemaker-Gonzalez backed up, hit the cruiser and a guardrail and dumpster, then sped off until going down a ravine and hitting another guardrail, officials said.
At that point, Shoemaker-Gonzalez ran off and got into a Bristol police cruiser on Quaker Lane in Bristol, where police ordered him to stop and get out of the car, but he did not comply, officials said.
As Shoemaker-Gonzalez drove passed him, Officer Seth Petzing fired four shots at the driver’s side door, the Office of the Inspector General report states.
When police spoke with Shoemaker-Gonzalez, he told them that he had lost his keys on the night of Jan. 11, 2023, took a bus from East Hartford to Park Street in Hartford, then needed a ride back home, so he approached a man on Park Street and the man started swinging at him.
He went on to say that he had been drinking and smoking PCP and could not remember much of what happened after that, the report says.
He did admit that he stole a Toyota RAV4 and a Bristol Police cruiser and said the “police were going to get him, so” .., and I heard a voice, I gotta get out of here. They gonna get you, they gonna grab you,’” the report says. He also told investigators that he suffered from PTSD and depression and was bipolar.
Blood tests revealed that Shoemaker-Gonzalez had Benzoylecgonine -a cocaine metabolite - oxycodone, and PCP in his system, according to the Office of the Inspector General.
He was released from the hospital on Jan. 15, 2023, and placed in police custody.
In an interview on Feb. 8, 2023, Shoemaker-Gonzalez told investigators that a family incident had stressed him out and caused him to relapse and resume smoking “dust.”
Then, on the day he stole the cruiser, he had lost his house keys and went looking for them, bought five or six bags of “dust” and smoked a couple of bags, then “smoked a blunt containing some dust,” the report says. After that, his recollection of what happened was limited.
When Officer Petzing spoke with investigators, he said, “Knowing the suspect had just committed several armed carjackings and was armed with a knife, he posed a greater risk to the community by being in possession of a marked police cruiser with working lights and sirens and a ready-to-use AR-15 with tactical gear.”
“I believed the suspect was intentionally accelerating at me and I believed my life was in danger. The grill of the cruiser was coming at me, and the tires were turned in my direction. Based on the stare, the look on the suspect’s face and the direction and speed of the vehicle, I believed I was going to be struck and killed. I then fired four rounds at the vehicle,” Petzing went on to say.
Inspector General Robert Devlin Jr. concluded, “Whether Officer Petzing’s use of deadly force was justified presents a close question. I am convinced, however, that there is insufficient evidence to establish beyond a reasonable doubt that it was not justified. The Office of Inspector General will take no further action in this matter.”
Shoemaker-Gonzalez is due in court on Sept. 24.
You can see the video of the theft of the police cruiser and the crash into the diner here.
Bristol police issued a statement on Wednesday afternoon, saying, "The Bristol Police Department would like to thank the Office of Inspector General for their efforts in conducting a thorough and objective investigation into the January 12, 2023 officer-involved shooting and agree with their assessment that Officer Petzing was justified when he discharged his firearm to protect himself from the imminent threat of serious physical injury and or death posed by a violent fleeing Felon in a stolen police car that day."
