Palm Springs officer-involved shooting suspect allowed to return to North Carolina
A man accused of threatening people with a knife then fighting with Palm Springs Police Department officers before being shot by police appeared in court in Indio on Wednesday.
According to a criminal complaint, 43-year-old Kevyn Weintraub was charged with assault on an officer with a deadly weapon causing great bodily injury, battery on an officer, assault on a person causing great bodily injury, resisting an officer and making a false bomb report to an officer.
During Wednesday’s proceedings at the Larson Justice Center, a judge decided that Weintraub would not have to appear at his next court hearing, a felony settlement conference, on October 8.
According to county jail records, Weintraub is free on $70,000 bail.
According to the Palm Springs Police Department, officers were initially called to the area of Camino Parocela and South Palm Canyon Drive on August 8 at around 4:15 p.m. for reports of a man, later identified as Weintraub, waving a knife around and fighting people.
Jeff Orozco, the owner of Gentlemen’s Barber Shop on Indian Canyon Drive, told News Channel 3’s Jake Ingrassia that Weintraub entered his store, threatened him, and shouted racist and homophobic slurs.
“He wasn’t just targeting Mexicans, in a way he was, but even the gay guys, the gay community he was calling them the ‘f word’ and all that and it’s not cool. It’s not cool to treat people like that,” Orozco said.
Read: Barbershop owner says man shot by PSPD shouted racist, homophobic slurs
Orozco said Weintraub left when police arrived. Witnesses added that he traveled down Indian Canyon, ending up at a nearby construction site.
When officers arrived and attempted to arrest Weintraub, he reportedly became combative and fought the officers. Weintraub sustained non-life threatening injuries during the offiicer involved shooting, and an officer sustained moderate injuries and was release from the hospital the next day, according to PSPD Lt. William Hutchinson.
“I did witness the second officer his hand it was like his wrist was hyperextended …contorted…and a large amount of blood,” said Philip Becerra, a bystander on scene.
The Riverside County Sheriff’s Department is investigating the officer-involved shooting.
