An allegedly unarmed 73-year-old grandfather whose family said was in the early stages of dementia was fatally shot early Monday morning by a Bakersfield, California, police officer responding to reports of neighborhood man brandishing a gun.
Police in Bakersfield, Calif., found a crucifix on an unarmed 73-year-old retiree with dementia shot dead by an officer, after police said the man ignored their requests to remove his hands from his jacket.
An officer fired seven rounds into Francisco Serna early Monday morning after a neighbor contacted police and said Serna brandished a gun at his wife and wife’s friend.
“During a search of Mr. Serna a dark-colored simulated woodgrain crucifix was recovered,” read a statement from the Bakersfield Police Department. “Mr. Serna was not armed at the time of the shooting. No firearm has been recovered.”
The department identified the officer who fired the shots as Police Officer Reagan Selman, who has been with the department since July 2015. Selman and six other officers who were on the scene have been placed on administrative leave, according to the statement. This is Selman’s first officer-involved shooting, the statement said.
Serna has never carried a gun and was opposed to firearms, Serna’s son, Frank Serna, told KGET. “I don’t know what led police to believe he had a gun,” Frank Serna said.
Police said the events unfolded about 12:35 a.m. Monday. A neighbor arrived home as a passenger in a friend’s car and as she exited the car, she noticed Serna standing behind her with his right hand “concealed inside his jacket,” the police statement read.
The neighbor told police that Serna “began questioning her about living in the neighborhood and demanded she open the car door so he could look inside.”
The neighbor told police she saw “a dark brown or black handled object that she believed was a gun” inside Serna’s jacket.
The neighbor’s friend unlocked her car door and Serna began looking inside the car. At that point, the neighbor ran to her house and told her husband to call the police because there was a man outside with a gun, police said.
The neighbor’s husband called 911 and reported “there was a man outside of his house in possession of a revolver and that the man had brandished the gun at the women outside.”
Selman and several more officers arrived on the scene, and while talking to the woman, saw Serna come out of his house across the street and walk toward them with both hands “concealed inside of his jacket.”
Several officers ordered Serna to stop and show his hands, but he did not, according to police.
“As Mr. Serna was about 15-20 feet from Officer Selman, Officer Selman fired seven rounds at Mr. Serna,” according to the police statement.
Serna dropped to the ground in the neighbor’s driveway. He was pronounced dead at the scene, according to police.
Serna’s family said he often took walks at night because sometimes he could not sleep and the walking helped make him tired.
The Chicago-based Alzheimer’s Association, which offers support for patients and families dealing with Alzheimer’s and dementia, declined to comment specifically on the case but did say that dementia patients can be prone to wandering, or might get confused while they are out for a walk. It can happen at any stage of the ailment, said Beth Kallmyer, the association’s vice president of constituent services. Dementia patients also might become agitated at night, she said.
“What can happen when somebody is out and about, they might be in an area they know, but because of the Alzheimer’s dementia, they might get confused about where they’re at,” Kallmyer said. “One of the things that is important for families … is to get educated about some of these things that can happen with wandering and have a plan in place to help with that.”
The Alzheimer’s Association maintains a 24-hour, seven-day hotline for people with questions about Alzheimer’s and dementia at 1-800-272-3900.
The Bakersfield Police Department Critical Incident Review Board is investigating the incident, police said.
A study published last year by a project called Mapping Police Violence rated Bakersfield’s Police Department as the deadliest in the country, logging 13.6 killings for every million people. The United States average is 3.6, according to the project.
The training works, for them.
They “protected and served” the shit out of him didn’t they!? And Trump wants to expand our police forces. I can hardly wait.
You’re just jealous you didn’t get your chance to mug the helpless old man first. Love these Obamaistas.
When are people going to finally learn about the risks of “Calling the Cops?”
What really boggles my mind about the USA, compared to all other countries, is so many peoples’ predisposition to call the police for even the smallest of reasons. Neighbors love to sic the police, and code enforcement, on each other.
How many stories I have read where a family calls the cops because a family member is ‘acting strange’ so the cops show up and execute the person – and probably shoot the family dog also. Murican cops are not peacekeepers, they aggressively escalate and make matters worse. They also use the many petty calls at budget decision time for more tax payers money -“You see how many calls for service we receive a month, we need more $$$$$, especially for overtime pay”. What an expensive disgusting vicious cycle.
It’s time to think about boycotting the copfuks.
Spoken like a true BLM snowflake.
This was a terrible event but if it happened as reported,how can you blame the cops?
Everyone telling the cops he had a gun ans was threatening them with it lends itself to the cops thinking he had a gun and that is what was in his hand.
People need to keep in mind that this was in the middle of the night when things aren’t as clearly visible as during the middle of the day and a “crucifix” would easily look like a gun when viewed by someone threatening them with it as if it were.
Why was the guy running loose and unsupervised in the middle of the night?
A reasoned, balanced approach to the facts, as we know them now. So of course the usual suspects will start vomiting forth their hatred of the police and usual mindless social justice bile.
Nice comment sir. I wonder how any of these clowns would have reacted in the same circumstances.
@tampa…. How about you trying to shoot someone because you THINK they have a gun, and see how long it is before you reside at the iron bar motel.. dumfuk
The last time the cops were called on me (many years ago), I was lighting fire crackers off in my front yard, my neighbor saw me, and called the cops. He told them I was shooting a gun. (this in upstate rural NY, and firecracker are taboo, but guns are ok)
When John law showed up, he kept asking “where is the gun”. I answered there was no gun, it was firecrackers, but, that did not stop him from asking, where the gun was, he asked about 4 different ways, trying to use jedi mind tricks to get me to confess. I almost laughed in his face, but I remained polite.
When I finally convinced him there was no gun, he was not even upset that the neighbor basically lied. This is the why most folks almost always mention the word gun, when they call the cops, it will ensure someone shows up, and there are no repercussions for the rat finks who calls in and lies.
The best part of the story is that this neighbor/rat fink’s mobile home burned to the ground the following year, and I have never had a problem since.
Karma baby.
The track record between police and people with mental illness or intellectual disability is beyond dismal. Basically, the police just kill them, even when the person is unarmed.
Which is why my son with mild autism/aspbergers will probably never drive on the open road.
Hope tells us the police kill the mentally disabled/mentally challenged.
So the question is how does Hope survive in such a hostile environment and do the police consider this creature as unworthy of a bullet? My guess is that they do not wish to have something messy, smelly and foul on their shoes.
Dookie the dickhead giving Canucks everywhere a bad rap….. Your tombstone will read:
“Dougie Becker – Muslim Dhimmi and Most pathetic internet troll in all Canada – Died by the Sharia Sword of Justice as an infidel….he never even saw it coming.
Indentured:
What are you smoking? But nkit needs something to kill the last brain cell he uses. It would be a mercy killing.
http://pamelageller.com/2016/12/osu-group-holds-protest-killing-muslim-terrorist.html/
Justified or not seems to be in the eye of the beholder, doesn’t it?
Seven rounds from 15-20 feet? Perhaps it’s just me, but seven rounds sounds a bit excessive especially if the first two hit him, unless the goal is to make sure he’s killed and not merely wounded. Seven rounds and seven cops all for an old guy. Something smells.
nkit has vast police experience and is a wonder marksman, so who can question his expertise with a handgun or police procedure?
After all he watches all those cop shows.
Reminds me of the movie “Unforgiven” scene.
“You just shot an un-armed man!”
Clint: “I guess he shoulda armed his self then”
No so quick to judge , meatheads.Watched a video last night of two officers in Georgia get shot by a black criminal.Cop told him several times to get hands out of his pocket.Last time they told him he pull out a pistol and shot both.Both lived but they were Lucky .He was later arrested.Watch the video. It’s on YouTube.
Details, details. You wouldn’t want the meatheads to understand reality or the threat the police are under. They prefer to live in their safe spaces with their coloring books and fuzzy blankies rather than let reality intrude on their drug induced comas.
Nice comment. Amazing how many of these incidents result from someone refusing to obey the orders of a cop. I believe they all must be Englsih majors from Havard.
Or graduates of the special needs school-same difference.
People know that the cops just won’t show up unless a weapon is ‘seen’. I’ve seen it take hours, literally till the next day, before a cop shows up to a call of a ‘strange man hanging around’. In Detroit the cops won’t show up at anything less than a shooting, rape, robbery or murder. Everything else, the Detroit 911 operators tell the people to go down the next day to file a report. So the citizens tell little white lies to get the cops to show up. “I think he had a gun”.
The public pension crisis has caused much of this. Where once pensions were one or 2 percent of the budget 25 years ago, they are now up to 20% of the budgets of LA. Every percentage point is cops off the street and longer response times.
Rainman
73yr old shot 7 times at 20′ because they thought he had a gun, yeah that is murder.
The copfuk murdered a person in cold blood and he will be judged for it, but not on this earth.
If an intruder was making his way into my house via a window at midnight and I shot him 7 times at 20′ I would be charged with murder, but only on this earth.
Greg why not tell us more about those murder fantasties of yours. Seek help friend.
I try not to point out spelling and grammar typos but you spelled Anus wrong. That is OK though, due to the shit spewing from you we all know what you meant.
ROFLOL, good one
Wow another fag claims to be a veteran. Tell us about your MOS, unit and its commander, skippy.
Was it the First Pantywaist Brigade, snowflake.
LOL.
Greg:
Tell us more about you anal fixation. Didn’t your mommy love you? And your lack of education and grammer errors are evident for all to see.
tell us all about your Havard degree.
contend that gun phobia far more then guns, is the real danger. This man didn’t die because he had a gun; he died because of the gun phobia and gun ignorance of his neighbors. How is it that the woman’s husband reported specifically that the man had a “REVOLVER”? No way in hell does a crucifix look like a revolver. This is typical of gun phobia, where a crucifix becomes a revolver or an Uzi or an AK47 all due to gun hysteria fed by ignorance.
Yup how can anyone mistake something in someone’s hand in the middle of the night at some distance without knowledge of what the witness’s eyesight was.
I mean I can absolutely, positively tell the difference between a revolver and a thin barrel shaped object in the middle of the night. Can’t everyone?
It’s now a crime punishable by death (without a trial) to keep your hands in your pockets if a cop tells you to pull them out. What country is this?
They need to change the motto on all of the cop doors from “to protect and serve” to “I’m going home at the end of my shift and I don’t care who I have to kill to do it”
Boosh tells us to ignre a policeman’s order. Tell you what Boosh have a friend video tape you doing this to a cop and tell us about how you humiliated the cop and served social justice.
Not at all defending the cops here.
People with dementia should not be allowed to wander the neighborhood alone late at night, which I assume the family now recognizes. This story demonstrates the kinds of tragedies that can occur. The victim could have just as easily encountered a criminal and ended up the same way.