Sheriff Bianco stands behind deputy who shot man in Rancho Mirage

Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco is standing behind a Palm Desert Sheriff’s Station deputy who used lethal force in a deputy-involved shooting in Rancho Mirage on Tuesday night.

At 7:23 p.m., deputies responded to the intersection of Bob Hope Drive and Ramon Road in front of the Agua Caliente Casino for a report of a man waving a knife in the area and displaying “bizarre behavior”, according to an RSO news release.

After responding, deputies reportedly spoke with the suspect, who was not complying and then attempted to tase the man, but it proved ineffective. The man then reportedly lunged towards deputies who had surrounded him as he was traveling northbound on the east side of Bob Hope Drive. This led a deputy to shoot the man, who was later pronounced dead at an area hospital.

In an interview with News Channel 3 on Wednesday, Bianco said that the deputy responded appropriately to the situation.

ORIGINAL STORY: Man killed in Rancho Mirage deputy-involved shooting

“The deputies responded and reacted to a perceived threat and unfortunately it ended the way it did,” Bianco said.

The deputies involved in the incident were wearing body cameras, and Bianco says that the footage from those cameras will be released to the public at some point.

Additional footage from social media and online has been sent into News Channel 3, and the Sheriff’s Department. Bianco says that the Department is in the process of reviewing several different angles and versions of the footage and is actively conducting interviews.

“We have no reason to hold it back, other than at this in the investigation,” said Bianco. “We’re not going to release that now, that could change in an hour, that could change tomorrow.”

The investigation is active. Bianco urges anyone who witnessed the incident to come forward to be interview by the Sheriff’s Department.

A witness at the scene told News Channel 3 they believe they saw the victim holding a knife prior to the shooting.

“They shot him in the chest. He dropped the knife, he fell down. They jumped on him and handcuffed him right away,” said Steven Good, a witness.

{“url”:”https://twitter.com/RSO/status/1148786981045805056″,”author_name”:”Riverside County Sheriff’s Dept”,”author_url”:”https://twitter.com/RSO”,”html”:”&#lt;blockquote class=”twitter-tweet”&#gt;&#lt;p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”&#gt;&#lt;a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/RanchoMirage?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”&#gt;#RanchoMirage&#lt;/a&#gt; Deputy Involved Shooting (DIS) occd 7/9/19, about 7:30pm, in the area of Bob Hope Dr and Ramon Rd. Stay out of the area for the investigation. No further information is available at this time. We will provide updates here as soon as we get information. &#lt;a href=”https://t.co/ChsroiEvX5″&#gt;pic.twitter.com/ChsroiEvX5&#lt;/a&#gt;&#lt;/p&#gt;— Riverside County Sheriff’s Dept (@RSO) &#lt;a href=”https://twitter.com/RSO/status/1148786981045805056?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”&#gt;July 10, 2019&#lt;/a&#gt;&#lt;/blockquote&#gt;n&#lt;script async src=”https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js” charset=”utf-8″&#gt;&#lt;/script&#gt;n”,”width”:550,”height”:null,”type”:”rich”,”cache_age”:”3153600000″,”provider_name”:”Twitter”,”provider_url”:”https://twitter.com”,”version”:”1.0″}

Flores said the man was not complying with deputy’s commands and was initially tased. When that didn’t work, deputies repeatedly ordered the man to drop the knife, but he did not comply, leading to the deputy-involved shooting.

Flores confirmed the man was pronounced dead at the local hospital.