SAN DIEGO - A patrolman was legally justified in fatally shooting a mentally ill Mira Mesa woman who was seemingly about to slit her 85-year-old mother's throat in their home, District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis concluded in a ruling released Friday.
San Diego police Officer Robert Heims opened fire on Gianine Desiderio-Ohara last July 15 as she held the older woman in a chokehold with a knife at her neck in their Greenford Drive house, Dumanis wrote.
Desiderio-Ohara died at the scene. Her mother, Helen Desiderio, was treated at a hospital for minor injuries and released a short time later.
The events that led the shooting began about 10:30 that night, when the police department got a 911 call reporting a domestic disturbance at the women's residence, according to the district attorney.
"Patrol officers were familiar with both mother and daughter, as they'd been to the home on previous occasions," Dumanis stated. "Several of the officers were also aware (Desiderio-Ohara) was a drug abuser, had psychological problems, had been previously admitted to County Mental Health and had assaulted her elderly mother in the past."
When police arrived, the house was locked and a woman was screaming and ranting incoherently inside. Getting no response to their repeated knocks and shouts at the door, officers forced entry.
Heims entered a bedroom to find the women on a bed, the daughter behind the mother with one arm around her throat and a serrated knife pushed up against her neck.
As the uniformed 15-year department veteran trained his 9 mm service pistol on the younger woman, another officer who'd had prior contact with her tried in vain to calm her down, Dumanis wrote. At one point, responding to the officers' repeated orders to drop the weapon, she said, "I don't care if you shoot me."
Moments later, seeing Desiderio-Ohara begin to "saw-cut" her mother's neck with the blade, Heims fired two rounds from a distance of about three feet, according to Dumanis.
An autopsy determined that she died of bullet wounds to her right arm and chest and that she had methamphetamine in her system at the time of her death, according to the county's top prosecutor.
Desiderio-Ohara's mother told investigators her daughter was a diagnosed psychotic, had been to jail for beating her and had recently threatened to kill her.
Under California law, peace officers are entitled to use lethal force to protect themselves and members of the public from threats of great bodily injury or death.
Heims told investigators he opened fire on Desiderio-Ohara because he believed she was about to kill her mother, according to Dumanis.
"Based on these circumstances, it's apparent Officer Heims fired in defense of Mrs. Helen Desiderio as well as in defense of himself and the other officers present at the scene," the district attorney stated in a letter to SDPD Chief William Lansdowne. "He therefore bears no criminal liability for his actions."
