Police Justified In Fatal Shooting Of Man, Bucks Co. DA Says

Police officers were justified in the fatal shooting of a hatchet-wielding man earlier this month in Bristol Township, the Bucks County District Attorney has determined after an investigation that included the use of police car dash cam footage.

Bucks County District Attorney Matt Weintraub, in a letter to Bristol Township Police Chief Robert Coulton, said officers were "fully justified in discharging their weapons" to shoot a 29-year-old man who had stabbed a woman earlier in the day.

Jose Gomez-Burgos, 29, of Bronx, N.Y., was fatally shot at 12:18 p.m. on March 5 in a confrontation with police on Edgely Road near Runway Road. He was taken to Jefferson Torresdale Hospital, where he was pronounced dead. An autopsy showed Gomez-Burgos had been shot three times, and died of blood loss from a torn aorta.

At the time of the encounter with Bristol Township police, Gomez-Burgos was wanted by New York City police for the stabbing of the mother of his children, Weintraub said. After fleeing the scene of the stabbing, Gomez-Burgos “called 911 and admitted that he stabbed his victim," Weintraub said. Gomez-Burgos also told his family members that he wanted to die.

The footage from the cameras on police vehicles showed Gomez-Burgos got out of the stolen car with a hatchet “upraised in his right hand." He strode "purposefully and quickly" toward the officer. "I heard at least one officer tell the subject to stop and drop the weapon as he got to within 5-8 feet of Ofc. Wiser, when [Wiser] and Ofc. Kitchenman shot at him. Interviews of the officers as well as of independent witnesses corroborate these two videos, and also aided me in my conclusions," Weintraub wrote.

When officers called in the car’s license plate, he learned that the driver was wanted for the earlier stabbing in New York. Gomez-Burgos was ordered from the vehicle, Weintraub wrote, at which time the suspect moved toward officers with the raised hatchet. After Gomez-Burgos fell to the ground, officers discovered he also had a knife hidden in his left hand.

“The subject clearly placed Ofc. Wiser in apparent danger of death or serious bodily injury,” creating “a situation in which it was inevitable that the officers would open fire at him both in self-defense and in defense of their fellow officers," Weintraub wrote.

Whenever deadly force is used by law enforcement officers in Bucks County, it is standard procedure for the District Attorney to investigate to determine whether the use of deadly force was justified.

Since neither officer is culpable in the shooting, the Bucks County District Attorney's investigation has been closed.

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