VENTURA — Ventura Police Department patrol officers were summoned by a 911 Emergency call to the VPD Command Center on the morning of July 18th indicating what the Watch Commander’s report to the media described as “a vagrant setting up a camp” in a downtown commercial district parking lot.
Responding officers discovered 38-year-old Ryan Evanson, known to law enforcement authorities as a local area homeless man, making himself to home in a parking lot designated and marked for commercial business customers’ vehicles.
When the cops made contact with Evanson, “he suddenly removed a butter knife” from a pocket and held it up to his own throat in a manner indicating his interest in harming himself.
While Evanson did not act in a threatening manner toward the officers, he did express with some apparent sincerity his desire to be fired upon by them.
Wisely, the cops refused to discharge their weapons at Evanson, whereupon he summarily dropped the butter knife and took off running.
The officers pursued Evanson as he ran onto the campus of nearby Buena High School, prompting them to call VPD Command Center to initiate a “lockdown” of the school in the interests of public safety.
The officers caught Evanson in the school parking lot and took him into custody, whereupon he was transported to Ventura County Jail and was booked on a charge of resisting or obstructing a police officer. Neither Evanson nor the officers involved were injured.
