Video has emerged of police in Santa Cruz, Calif. arresting U.S. Air Force staff sergeant Steven Carrillo suspected of killing one Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s deputy and critically wounding another in an ambush killing Saturday.
KPIX 5 obtained footage of residents of a neighborhood near Ben Lomond, pinning Carrillo to the ground before police could arrive to arrest him.
In the video, two neighbors trapped Carrillo. One man is seen pinning Carrillo to the ground while another held a dog on a leash just off to the side. The two man kept Carrillo trapped until other sheriff’s deputies could respond.
Clara Ricabal, a witness who captured the footage of her neighbors trapping Carrillo, said “[Carrillo] was clearly in the backyard” and “was trying to carjack” one of the neighbors. “He was talking like gibberish and kind of fast,” Ricabal said of Carrillo.
Another video posted to IndyBay shows Carrillo being dragged to the street by sheriff’s deputies and then escorted away.
Sources for IndyBay reported Carrillo was heard saying, “This is why I came here, I’m sick of these goddamn police and their use of force. Listen.”
Carrillo’s words were inaudible in the video and could not be verified.
Carrillo, 32, has been identified as an active-duty Air Force staff sergeant stationed at Travis Air Force Base. He was assigned to the 60th Security Forces Squadron on the base.
Carrillo reportedly detonated bombs and fired multiple firearms in a Saturday afternoon attack on the officers. The attack occurred shortly after police were alerted to a suspicious white van with guns and bomb-making material visible inside the vehicle. Following the attack, Carrillo reportedly carjacked one person and reportedly attempted another carjacking and was shot prior to his arrest.
Santa Cruz Sheriff’s Sgt. Damon Gutzwiller was killed in the attack. He was a 14-year veteran of the department and had a pregnant wife and a young child.
Another unnamed deputy was also struck by either shrapnel from an explosive or gunfire during the attack and was critically injured. A third deputy was also shot in the hand.
As of Saturday, police had not ruled out the possibility that others were involved in the ambush attack near Ben Lomond. The FBI in San Francisco were also investigating whether Carrillo may have had a connection to the killing of a Department of Homeland Security officer in Oakland, Calif. the weekend prior to the Santa Cruz ambush attack.
The ambush attack comes amid widespread civil unrest following the death of a black man, George Floyd, while in Minneapolis police custody on May 25. Protests and rioting has spread following Floyd’s death, and other attacks targeting police have also occurred.
