Boy shot dead by police in bath after threatening to harm himself

The boy was backed into a bathtub and then shot

The death came less than a month after San Bernardino deputies shot and killed 15-year-old Ryan Gainer (AP)

A sheriff’s deputies shot and killed a 17-year-old boy with mental health issues after he armed himself with a knife and locked himself inside a bathroom.

The teen was being transferred from a hospital, where he had been treated after cutting himself, to a mental health facility when he escaped on Tuesday, San Bernardino County Sheriff Shannon Dicus said.

The boy, a foster youth who lives in Hesperia, later showed up at a home in Victorville where his sisters live in foster care, Dicus said. Someone at the home called deputies to come arrest him, Dicus said, because he had caused trouble there before.

The teen, who had a knife, locked himself in a bathroom, and deputies tried to get him to come out for about a half hour, according to the sheriff. But when the boy threatened to harm himself, deputies kicked down the door and tried to apprehend him, Dicus said.

A video and still images of the encounter showed the teen holding a knife, the Riverside Press-Enterprise reported. Deputies pepper-sprayed him, and one deputy’s hand was sliced by the knife, the newspaper said.

The teen was backed into a bathtub, where he was shot, Dicus said. He was pronounced dead at a hospital.

Armed officers from the Sheriff’s department on patrol near the scene of the crime in San Bernardino, California (AFP via Getty Images)

The death came less than a month after San Bernardino deputies shot and killed 15-year-old Ryan Gainer. The autistic boy had threatened family members at a home in Victorville and then chased a responding deputy with a garden hoe, the sheriff’s department said.

Dicus said Wednesday that in both cases, deputies were met with violence. He said parents need more access to mental health services for their troubled children, so that law enforcement isn’t the only option in times of crisis.

“My record as sheriff for the last several years is I have championed having a better mental health system,” Dicus said. “The corrections environment and our public environment have been challenged a number of times where the only mental health resource we have in our community is law enforcement, and that’s the only 24/7 resource that we have.”

The cases also come the week law enforcement footage revealed the shocking moment when a 15-year-old girl who was reported as a kidnapping victim was fatally shot in California.

Newly released video captured the September 2022 incident when San Bernadino County Sheriff’s Department deputies were trying to rescue Savannah Graziano, who instead nded up being shot and killed.