On December 2nd, 2020, at approximately 6:27 PM, officers from the Redding Police Department responded to a disturbance call in Discovery Village, located on Dana Drive. The disturbance involved a 62-year-old female from Yuba County, Ca. (The female’s name is being withheld until next of kin can be notified). The disturbance initially occurred within MOD Pizza, where the female was yelling and cursing at patrons and store management. After several store management attempts to have the female leave, she eventually exited the business and continued to cause a disturbance in the parking lot. After more than 20 minutes of her disruptive behavior, a shopping center security guard attempted to intervene. She began to berate the security guard and still refused to leave the location. Based on her erratic behavior and refusing to leave, the security guard contacted the Redding Police Department.
Two Redding Police Officers responded and located the female sitting in the driver’s seat of a dark sedan. She was the sole occupant of the vehicle and was parked directly in front of MOD Pizza.
While officers were talking to the female suspect in her vehicle, she began to back out of the parking stall and appeared to be leaving. After backing up a few feet, the female suspect stopped her vehicle, put it in drive, turned her wheels toward the officers, nearly striking one of them. The officers ended up on the driver’s side of the vehicle. An officer tried to get her to stop by striking the driver’s window of her vehicle with his baton giving her commands to stop her vehicle. The female suspect placed her vehicle in reverse, turned the tires and accelerated backwards. One of the officers was struck by the vehicle’s front driver’s side tire and fell to the ground, becoming pinned under the tire. If the vehicle accelerated forward, this movement would have put the officer in more danger potentially causing him to be run over by the rear tires.
A video was posted via Twitter on Facebook Messenger.
The secondary officer on scene immediately attempted to disable the suspect’s vehicle by deflating the left rear tire. While the first officer was still pinned underneath the driver’s side tire, the secondary officer drew his sidearm and fired multiple shots at the female suspect, fatally wounding her.
The officer who was struck by the suspect’s vehicle was injured due to the incident and was transported to the hospital via ambulance. He is expected to make a full recovery and has since been discharged from the hospital. The two involved officers will be identified at a later date, as this investigation is ongoing. The Shasta County Multi-Agency Officer Involved Critical Incident Protocol was initiated, and the Shasta County Sheriff’s Office Major Crimes Unit is the lead investigating agency.
No additional information will be released at this time. Anyone who may have witnessed this incident who has not already been contacted, or has any additional information, is urged to contact the Shasta County Sheriff’s Office Major Crimes Unit at 530-245-6135 or by email at MCU@co.shasta.ca.us.
UPDATE:
On December 2, 2020, at approximately 2230 hours, a Deputy Coroner Investigator was dispatched to the Discovery Village on Dana Drive in Redding, California, regarding an officer involved shooting. The subject was pronounced deceased at the scene by emergency personnel.
The decedent was positively identified as Dolores Hernandez of Marysville, California. The decedent’s next-of-kin has been notified and a postmortem examination will be scheduled. The case remains under investigation by the Shasta County Sheriff’s Office.
