SF Bay Area Police Kill Man, Seize Ecstasy Tablets

Police in the gritty San Francisco Bay area suburb of Vallejo shot and killed one man and wounded another early Sunday morning and seized about 50 Ecstasy tablets in a roadside encounter turned fatal. Mario Ramiro, 23, becomes the 45^th person to die in US domestic drug law enforcement operations so far this year.

According to KTVU TV News, citing police sources, two Vallejo Police officers were on patrol about 4:30am Sunday in "an area known for recent gang-related activity" when they spotted two men sitting in a vehicle. The police turned their patrol car spotlights on the vehicle to illuminate it.

Police said the driver, Ramiro, got out of the vehicle and they saw the butt of a handgun in his waistband. Police said Ramiro, partly hidden behind the driver's door, reached for the gun and began turning toward the officers. The officers then opened fire, but Ramiro remained crouched behind the driver's door. Police said he did not comply with their demands to show his hands and instead reached toward the vehicle's center console. So they shot him some more. Police said they fired 30 rounds, and Ramiro slumped over.

Ramiro was taken to a Vallejo hospital where he died shortly thereafter. The passenger, Joseph Johnson, 21, was shot at least five times and was being treated at a hospital in Walnut Creek.

After the shooting, police searched the vehicle and found not a handgun but an airsoft pellet gun, which was the weapon they had spotted in Ramiro's waistband, and more than 50 Ecstasy tablets.

Ramiro's sister, Cynquita Martin, told KTVU that she watched the shooting from inside a nearby home and that neither man posed a threat to police. She accused police of out-of-control shooting as angry friends and family members gathered in front of the police department Sunday afternoon. Video of the aftermath showed multiple bullet holes in the vehicle's windshield.

"When I went to the window I saw him [a police officer] re-clip his gun, hop on the hood and just start firing," Martin said. "His arms was out the window. My brother is slumped in the car already."

Ramiro's mother Cynthia also said the police didn't have to use deadly force.

"The Vallejo Police Department has killed my son, an innocent person sitting in the car and then they're trying to make it like it's a shootout," she said. "It wasn't a shootout. The only shootout was them shooting him."

The Vallejo Police and the Solano County District Attorney's office are investigating. Vallejo Police already announced that both Ramiro and Johnson were on parole for felony weapons violations.