Also Friday, authorities shed little new light on how Aaron escaped the transfer from Desert Valley Hospital, where he had been treated three days before his death after he cut himself, to a mental health facility.

Aaron was being transported “by EMS,” said hospital spokeswoman Andrea Bell, referring to emergency medical services.

“Beyond this, we cannot share more information due to patient privacy laws. Our thoughts and deepest condolences are with the family and all involved in this tragic event,” Bell wrote in an email.

Bell did not respond to additional written and phone messages seeking a more specific description of what EMS she was referencing — for instance a private ambulance company — as well as when, where and how the escape happened.

The Sheriff’s Department did not provide such information either on Friday. Sheriff Shannon Dicus said Wednesday that the hospital immediately notified the department when Aaron vanished.

At around 12:30 p.m. Tuesday, the teen, a foster youth who lives in Hesperia, showed up at the home on Forest Hills Drive in Victorville where his sisters live in foster care, Dicus said. A person at the home called deputies to come detain Aaron, Dicus said, because he had caused trouble there before.

Aaron, who had a knife, locked himself in the bathroom, and deputies tried for about 30 minutes to get him to come out.

But when Aaron 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 him holding a knife. Deputies pepper-sprayed him, and one deputy’s hand was sliced by the knife.

Aaron was pushed or fell into a bathtub, where he was shot. He was pronounced dead at a hospital.

Dicus called on the county to provide more mental health services for parents so they don’t have to rely on law enforcement when their children act out.

The use of force occurred on March 26 after 36-year-old Christian Cardenas Alonso from Adelanto was pulled over for a traffic stop. Alonso was identified as a suspect in an armed robbery, the Sheriff’s Department said in a news release. Alonso refused to leave his car and resisted arrest, the department said. He was struck while face-down on the pavement.

“We are looking at it through a criminal lens and an administrative lens whether that subject had actually been handcuffed,” Dicus said. “We’re putting the public’s video with the body-worn camera videos and we’re going to take a look at those and I can reassure you we will take the correct and appropriate processes, whether it’s submitting something to the (District Attorney’s Office) criminally and doing an administrative investigation.”

If the internal findings determine the deputies were at fault, they could face discipline up to termination, the sheriff said.

Dicus, after briefing reporters Wednesday on the fatal shooting of a 17-year-old mentally ill boy the previous day, addressed several headline-making uses of force by his department.

He noted the videos released last week in the September 2022 fatal shooting of unarmed Fontana kidnap victim Savannah Graziano during a gun battle in Hesperia that also killed her father. The shootings are under investigation by the state Department of Justice.

“I implore the public to let the DOJ do their review and work through the system,” Dicus said.

He was asked what his reaction was when he saw his deputies shoot the 15-year-old as she appeared to be surrendering.

“One of my reactions was seeing the deputy sheriffs that were involved in that case and they realized she was shot and killed, and if you saw their distraught faces, you’d understand why I want to make sure that the legal process of this (investigation) is transmitted to the public as well as the videos and things I’m required to release based on the time frame,” Dicus said.

The Sheriff’s Department is taking the lead in investigating recent shootings by Fontana police officers. The Southern California News Group reported that Fontana has withheld most details, including body-worn camera videos, of those shootings.

“Chief (Dorsey) would be legally errant in releasing information on both the suspect and the officers involved in the shooting,” Dicus said, referencing a case that is in the courts. “I can reassure everyone that there will be transparency.”

Deputies had taken the 17-year-old boy to Desert Valley Hospital in Victorville three days earlier after he had cut himself. He was being transferred Tuesday from the hospital to a mental health facility when he escaped, Dicus said at a news conference at sheriff’s headquarters in San Bernardino.

At around 12:30 p.m. Tuesday, the teen, a foster youth who lives in Hesperia, showed up at the home in the 17100 block of Forest Hills Drive in Victorville where his sisters live in foster care, Dicus said. A person at the home called deputies to come detain him, Dicus said, because he had caused trouble there before.

The teen, who had a knife, locked himself in the bathroom, and deputies tried for about a half hour to get him to come out.

But when the boy, who was not identified by the sheriff, threatened to harm himself, deputies kicked down the door and tried to apprehend him, Dicus said. A video and still images of the encounter presented at the news conference showed the teen holding a knife. Deputies pepper-sprayed him, and one deputy’s hand was sliced by the knife.

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

“Our hearts go out to the families involved in this case. This is a tragedy,” Dicus said.

This is one of two video clips provided by the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department of them trying to detain a 17-year-old threatening himself with a knife on April 2 in Victorville. They wound up shooting and killing him. Warning: Disturbing images. pic.twitter.com/C9ShPm3KDy

— Brian Rokos (@BrianRokos) April 3, 2024

Dicus said that had deputies waited for a mental health worker to arrive, the teen could have harmed himself with the knife. And the teen would have first had to be safely detained before a mental health worker could talk to him, the sheriff said.

Dicus said deputies successfully had detained the teen “many” times before.

Such was also the case with 15-year-old Ryan Gainer, the autistic teen who was shot to death outside his Victorville home on March 9 as he chased a deputy while wielding a hoe. Deputies were called to the home after Gainer threatened family members and damaged the home, the Sheriff’s Department said.

Dicus said the difference, on the days when Gainer and the 17-year-old were killed, is that deputies were met with violence.

As he did after Gainer died, Dicus said parents need more mental health options for their children.

“Obviously, we have had a number of these situations occur here,” 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.”

Dicus was asked what he’d like to be different about the system.

“What I would change is that parents would have the ability that when their children are in crisis to have a place to be able to go 24/7 so they don’t have to involve law enforcement. Unfortunately, when these kids degrade to the point where they become violent toward the family members, they have to call us. If they’re able to interact before because they know their children, perhaps we can get them on medication and have a professional take a look at them, and certainly have better outcomes than we are having right now,” Dicus said.

A request for comment on Dicus’ statements was made to county mental health officials Wednesday.

Recordings released by the Sheriff’s Department on Friday, March 29 indicate that a deputy was coaxing 15-year-old kidnap victim Savannah Graziano to come to him to surrender after she got out of her father’s pickup at the Main Street exit of the 15 Freeway when she was fatally struck down by other deputies’ gunfire.

Anthony John Graziano, 45, of Fontana, who was wanted for killing his wife and kidnapping Savannah days earlier, was also killed in the gun battle.

The DOJ investigates fatal shootings of unarmed civilians by law enforcement under a 2020 state law. Investigators determine whether officers committed a crime and whether their tactics and department policies were in line with best practices.

The DOJ has completed six such investigations, all from shootings that happened in 2021. The average completion time was just under two years. The DOJ has 48 active investigations and generally works them in order of occurrence. Investigators work more than one case at a time. The Graziano shooting would be 19th in line if taken in sequence.

“It’s important for investigative agencies to do their work as fast as possible and release information as fast as they can so people know what happened,” said Jim Bueermann, a retired Redlands police chief who now works as a policing consultant. “It’s not fair to the survivors and it’s not fair to the officers involved if they don’t.”

But the sharing of information with investigators got off to a slow start.

“The DOJ requested materials and evidence from the Department,” the Sheriff’s Department said in an email when it released the Graziano recordings. “Regrettably, in April of 2023, the Department encountered significant challenges due to a ransomware attack and was unable to access all the Department’s data. Despite extensive and ongoing efforts to resolve this issue, much of the data remained inaccessible. As of March 29, 2024, all requests from the DOJ for evidence have been fulfilled by the Department.”

The county paid a $1.1 ransom to the cyber attacker to unlock Sheriff’s Department databases that he had encrypted.

A DOJ spokeswoman on Tuesday would not describe in specific terms any effect of the delay or provide a timeline for completion.

The Sheriff’s Department conducted an internal investigation to determine whether its deputies’ actions conformed to department policy. The Southern California News Group has filed a California Public Records Act request for the results.

Bueermann recently founded the Future Policing Institute, whose mission is described as advancing policing “that is effective, empathetic and just.”

He said investigators in both agencies are likely focusing on what deputies perceived as they fired.

On Sept. 26, 2022, Graziano shot his wife to death and kidnapped their daughter, Fontana police said, triggering an Amber Alert for their white 2017 Nissan Frontier. Then on Sept. 27, a convenience store clerk recognized Savannah and called 911. Deputies found the pickup near Barstow and pursued it to the Main Street exit in Hesperia.

There, Graziano tried to drive the wrong way up the exit amid heavy gunfire. The pickup eventually rolled back next to the freeway, a law enforcement video also released Friday shows. That’s when Savannah, who the Sheriff’s Department said was wearing tactical gear and a helmet, got out.

A deputy crouching next to his patrol car shouted for Savannah to come to his location, and, hunched over, she walked briskly toward him, a video shows. His shouts that included “Stop shooting her,” while archived on his belt recorder, did not go out over the police radio, the Sheriff’s Department said.

Deputies who had different vantage points of the encounter then mortally wounded the teen.

The circumstances, Bueermann said, “show how chaotic these things can be. It’s very loud, near the freeway. The deputy or deputies who shot her, what did they believe, and is it reasonable for them to believe it?”

The tactical gear Savannah wore, Bueermann said, “is not typical attire for a kidnap victim and that would seem to me to lend credence to the deputies believing she was actually trying to attack a deputy. But that doesn’t mean (they believed that).”

WARNING: The video below is graphic and may be disturbing to some viewers. The source of the video is the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department.

The files, received Friday, March 29, were released by the Sheriff’s Department in response to a California Public Records Act request filed 18 months ago by the Southern California News Group.

Until the files were made available, there had been questions as to whether Savannah Graziano, 15, was killed by gunfire from deputies or by her father, Anthony John Graziano, 45, who was also killed in the shootout.

“Both Graziano and Savannah were struck by deputy rounds and died of their injuries,” the introduction to one of the videos states.

The shooting is likely to raise more questions about the training of the deputies, who were already under scrutiny for recent uses of force. On March 9, a deputy shot to death 15-year-old autistic boy Ryan Gainer as he chased a deputy while wielding a garden hoe outside his home in Apple Valley. And on March 26, a deputy repeatedly kneed in the head a man who was face-down on the pavement during an arrest in Hesperia.

The Graziano case began on Sept. 26, 2022, when Fontana police say Graziano shot his wife to death and kidnapped their daughter. An Amber Alert was issued for their white 2017 Nissan Frontier the next day. Then on Sept. 28, a clerk at a High Desert convenience store called 911 when he recognized Savannah, who was buying snacks. Deputies found the pickup near the junction of highways 395 and 58 near Barstow, and a pursuit began that exceeded 100 mph.

The chase went along the 58 and then south on the 15, through Victorville and into Hesperia, with shots being exchanged and a report of shots from the pickup’s driver’s side window.

One witness told a dispatcher later that shots were also being fired from the pickup’s passenger side. The narrator of the video said the accuracy of that statement is still under investigation. Sheriff Shannon Dicus said at the time that Savannah was a “participant.” 

Graziano left the freeway lanes at Main Street, where he drove the wrong way up the freeway onramp and unsuccessfully tried to drive up an embankment and onto Main Street. As puffs of dirt rose where bullets were striking, the pickup rolled backward toward the freeway.

A patrol car was stopped on the freeway shoulder near where the pickup came to rest.

That’s when Savannah, who the Sheriff’s Department said in the video was wearing tactical gear and a helmet, got out of the Frontier.

“The female juvie is out,” a deputy aboard an overhead helicopter says, according to the video. “She’s out on the passenger side.”

Another file plays an audio recording from a deputy who was coaxing Savannah to come to her.

“Passenger, get out! Passenger, get out! Get out! Get out! Get out!” the deputy shouts.

Savannah fell to the pavement as she got out. As the deputy continued to shout orders, she got up and, hunched over, walked briskly toward him.

“Come here! … Come to me! … Come come come come, walk walk walk walk,” he shouts.

“Stop! Stop shooting her! He’s in the car! Stop! She’s OK. He’s in the car! Stop!” the deputy shouts.

But other deputies apparently didn’t see the events unfolding the same way.

“Deputies at a distance and higher locations and with differing fields of view saw a person exit the vehicle and move toward other deputies,” the video narrator said. “They discharged their service weapons as the person stood up and moved toward the closest deputy. That deputy, who could see it was a passenger, was calling her over.”

The deputy in the helicopter witnessed the shooting.

“Ah, no,” he said.

The state Department of Justice investigated the shooting under the state law that requires the DOJ to examine all fatal shootings by law enforcement officers of unarmed people. The DOJ did not respond to a request Monday seeking comment.

A sheriff’s spokeswoman, Mara Rodriguez, referred questions about the shooting to the DOJ.

The Sheriff’s Department conducted an internal investigation to determine whether deputies followed policy in the shooting. Rodriguez said Monday that the department would respond to questions about that probe through a California Public Records Act request.

There were no body-worn camera images of the shootout because the county had not yet issued the recording devices, which Dicus had promised would be rolled out by that time.

The use of force occurred shortly before 5 p.m. near Main Street and East Avenue, after 36-year-old Christian Cardenas Alonso from Adelanto was pulled over for a traffic stop. Alonso was identified as a potential suspect in an armed robbery that occurred Sunday on the 1600 block of Main, near his shop, Califa Tattoo, the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department said in a news release.

Alonso refused to leave his car and resisted arrest, leading to the use of force, the department said. Video footage obtained by Fox 11 News shows three deputies holding Alonso down on the pavement by his car, and at least one yelling, “Stop fighting!” while one deputy knees him in the rib area and another begins punching him in the head.

A fourth deputy walks over and holds Alonso down while the deputy who was previously punching him begins kneeing the man in the head and face area multiple times, before punching him again.

“I have been made aware of the use of force that occurred during the arrest of a suspected armed robbery suspect,” San Bernardino County Sheriff Shannon Dicus said in the release. “The use of force is currently under investigation, which includes the review of all body-worn cameras. The deputy has been placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of the investigation.”

The stolen property was discovered inside Alonso’s trunk during a search of the car, and a search warrant was served at his tattoo shop, authorities said, where they encountered several gang members who attempted to flee. A firearm, ammunition and gang markings were found inside Alonso’s business, the Sheriff’s Department said.

Details on any injuries Alonso suffered were not released.

EDITOR’S NOTE: A previous version of this story, and its headline, said the suspect was in handcuffs when kneed and punched. He was not, a department spokesman says.

Deputies responded to the Iroquois Road home of Ryan Gainer on March 9 after a 911 caller pleaded for deputies to “take him in” and said he had assaulted family members and damaged the house. Recordings from deputies’ body-worn cameras show them walking up to the house. As one deputy calls out “Where is he?” Gainer appears in the door and rushes toward them, carrying the hoe above his head.

A deputy, as he retreats, warns Ryan that he will be shot unless he drops the hoe. A second deputy, identified by the department as Wyatt Eisenbrey, fires at Ryan as he chases the deputy in the front yard and appears to be only feet away, the recordings show.

At a March 13 news conference, Sheriff Shannon Dicus said deputies had visited the home five times previously and each resulted in Ryan being taken to a mental-health facility with no use of force.

“Our social safety network is not working and needs to be strengthened,” Dicus said. “There is no reason for law enforcement to be the ones that end up having to get involved in these crises, specifically when we’ve off-ramped these individuals to social services that are supposed to be designed to take care of their mental-health needs.”

But attorney DeWitt M. Lacy, whose law firm filed a wrongful-death claim against the county on March 18 seeking more than $25,000 in damages, said Dicus was “passing the buck.”

“They abandoned their training,” Lacy said in an interview. “They shouted, ‘Where is he?’ As soon as they saw Ryan they presented a gun. Law enforcement officers are trained to deal with this. And they are passing the buck right now because it looks bad. Approaching in a calm manner, not making threats; those are the types of things they are actually trained on.

“(Dicus is) shucking responsibility and accountability. He can say whatever he wants about some failing in the mental health safety network. The San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department is not living up to its job because they are not part of that safety net,” Lacy continued.

The claim is a legally required precursor to a lawsuit against the government. County spokesman David Wert declined to comment on the claim, citing the pending litigation, other than to say administrators have not yet reviewed it. Such claims are almost always rejected.

The Sheriff’s Department said in a Tuesday statement there was a domestic violence arrest warrant for Keith Vinyard, 52, of Hesperia, and that Vinyard fled a traffic stop on Saturday at around 9:50 p.m. at the 15400 block of Halinor Street in Hesperia.

According to the Sheriff’s statement, Vinyard was driving recklessly during the pursuit. After the pursuit ended, he refused to comply with commands given by a deputy and threatened to shoot a deputy, the statement said.

Vinyard armed himself with a “large metal object” as more deputies arrived, leading to him getting shot and killed at the scene, the Sheriff’s statement said.

The California DOJ regularly investigates when there is an officer-involved shooting resulting in the death of an unarmed civilian. An unarmed civilian is defined as a person not in possession of a deadly weapon.

It wasn’t immediately known if Vinyard was armed with a deadly weapon at any point during Saturday’s confrontation with the deputies.

The California Department of Justice did not immediately provide additional details about why the shooting is being investigated.

The inmate condemned to death, Richard Dean Turner, was pronounced dead by medical staff on Saturday at 3:45 a.m. at an outside medical facility, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said in a news release. He was initially admitted to the prison system in 1980 for convictions of first-degree murder in the deaths of the couple from Apple Valley.

Turner, then 20 of Victorville, fatally shot 78-year-old Merle Claxton and his wife, 77-year-old Freda Claxton, inside their home on March 8, 1979, while under the influence of alcohol and a substance similar to PCP, according to court records and a San Bernardino Sun story from 1979. Turner’s co-defendant, William Souza, then 21 of Stockton, testified in court, stating that the two decided to burglarize a house for food and chose the Claxton house because it appeared that no one was home.

Deputies from the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department initially investigated a report of two cars, a Pinto station wagon and a Comet registered to Merle Claxton, that had been stolen and were found nearby. Upon arrival, officers found both cars abandoned with the lights on, doors open and a shotgun left on top of one of the cars. Two rifles were discovered inside one of the vehicles, along with Turner’s wallet and Merle Claxton’s wallet. An additional rifle was found in nearby bushes, as well as household items and frozen food, a California Supreme Court ruling stated.

Later that evening, a deputy arrived at the Claxton home and found it ransacked with the front and garage doors open, a smashed window and all the lights turned on. The bodies of the Claxtons were discovered in the kitchen. A dog was also found shot inside the home.

Using footprints found around the home, deputies tracked Turner and Souza 12 miles into the desert, where they were found hiding behind a bush. Turner and Souza were found guilty of two counts of first-degree murder by a jury. Before the crime, Turner and Souza had been roommates at a halfway house in Stockton, a court ruling said.

The victim was shot the evening of Oct. 21 while driving on Grove Community Drive approaching Plainview Street, police said. A vehicle pulled up alongside him, and gunfire came from that vehicle, hitting him multiple times in the upper body, police said.

A bullet struck the his phone, so he could not call for help, police spokesman Officer Ryan Railsback said.

Instead, the victim drove himself to the hospital and was treated.

Detectives obtained forensic evidence from the shooting scene and the victim’s vehicle and learned he had been dating a woman whose father, Samuel Pasillas, 47, of Victorville is a pastor at a church in that city, police said.

Pasillas met with the men he hired to kill the victim, police said, providing them with information about the victim, including his location on the evening of the shooting.

Detectives determined these men were paid almost $40,000 by the father and had conducted surveillance on the victim in the weeks leading up to the shooting, police said in a statement.

The motive for the shooting might be related to Pasillas’ religious beliefs, but the investigation is still ongoing, Railsback said.

On March 13, authorities investigating the shooting served search warrants at Victorville, Long Beach and Lynwood homes. Pasillas was arrested in Victorville and booked into the Robert Presley Detention Center on suspicion of solicitation for murder, conspiracy to commit murder, attempted murder and assault with a deadly weapon.

Juan Manuel Cebreros, 55, of Long Beach was arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to commit murder, attempted murder and assault with a deadly weapon by Riverside police in Long Beach.

Both suspects were arrested on March 13 and held on $1 million bail.

Pasillas and Cebreros pleaded not guilty on Monday at the Riverside Hall of Justice.

The possibility of additional suspects was being looked into as a part of the ongoing investigation, Railsback said.

Anyone with additional information can contact Detective Nic Cantino at 951-353-7104 or at ncantino@riversideca.gov.

City News Service contributed to this story.