A 28-year-old San Francisco man died after being shot driving home from an Alameda County Sheriff’s Office recruit academy, authorities said.
David V. Nguyen was fatally shot near the San Francisco — Oakland Bay Bridge toll plaza at 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 4, the sheriff’s office reported on Facebook. The office identified Nguyen as the slain recruit in a later post.
His Toyota Prius was found crashed against a guardrail and he died at the hospital of a single gunshot wound, KGO reported. Nguyen was driving his own vehicle and was not in uniform.
Nguyen died one month before he was set to graduate from the academy for new deputies, KNTV reported.
“He was able to get into the academy just through resilience and through hard work, and I’m so proud of him for that,” his sister, Barbara Nguyen, told the station.
“He was definitely going to be a great deputy and it is sad,” Robert Alvidres, who served alongside David Nguyen in the California National Guard, told KGO.
“He had a passion for it, sometimes those guys that have that passion, they don’t just stay at the bottom level, they move up and they make a difference somewhere, and unfortunately we know that’s never going to happen,” retired police officer Matt Castagnola told the station.
A National Guard spokesperson told NBC Bay Area that Nguyen served with the California National Guard 870th Military Police Company.
“We are heartbroken and disturbed by this senseless act of gun violence,” the sheriff’s office wrote on Twitter with a video of an honor guard saluting as Nguyen’s body was taken from the hospital to the coroner’s office.
___
(c) 2022 The Sacramento Bee
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
