Fremont Police Sued By Wife Saved From Knife-Wielding Husband

FREMONT, CA — A woman is suing Fremont police for shooting and killing her husband last year as he was wielding a knife outside their home when the officers responded to a disturbance.

The suit was filed in U.S. District Court on Tuesday by the law offices of noted civil rights attorney John Burris. It alleges that the officers should have taken greater precautions to account for a mental health
crisis that 54-year-old Troy Francis was suffering when he was killed on July 20, 2015.

Police said last year that Francis had charged at the officers with a kitchen knife after repeated commands to stop and drop the weapon.

Francis was wounded by gunfire and died about a month later, just after his release from the hospital.

According to the suit, Francis was having a mental health crisis triggered by his diabetes and an ongoing and excruciating pain in his foot that had become unbearable.

A neighbor, Gema Martinez, went next door to check on him and noticed he was in "desperate need of assistance," according to the suit. At 6:08 p.m., Officers Timothy Ferrara and Marrkel Smith, responded to the home at 4737 Baffin Ave.

Francis was outside the home with a knife when the officers arrived, according to the suit. Despite the signs that he was in the midst of a mental health crisis, the suit alleges that the officers did not follow proper procedures for dealing with a person having a mental health crisis, escalating the situation by immediately drawing their guns and shooting Francis without adequate warning.

Fremont police said last year that the officers had responded after Francis threatened his wife, Catherine Beaulieu, and another woman with the knife and chased them from the house.

Police spokeswoman Geneva Bosques declined to comment on the allegations in the lawsuit. Beaulieu is seeking unspecified damages for wrongful death, loss of familial relationship and excessive force, among
other allegations.

Ferrara, a 10-year veteran of the force at the time, was involved in a similar fatal shooting in 2010 when he and two other officers shot a knife-wielding man who attacked his ex-wife and her new boyfriend.

The man, Juan Mosso, had arrived drunk at his ex-wife's apartment at about 2:30 a.m. and found her new boyfriend there. He attacked them both, eventually pushing the boyfriend from her apartment.

The boyfriend called 911. When officers arrived, Ferrara knocked on the door and when they didn't get an answer kicked in the door and saw Mosso on the other side with a 10-inch knife. Ferrara, along with two other
officers, shot him dead.

Mosso's wife sued the city over the shooting but a judge found the officers acted reasonably. A state appeals court upheld that decision last year.

— Bay City News; Image via Shutterstock