Watsonville Teen High On LSD Killed By Deputy After Stabbing Spree

SANTA CRUZ (CBS SF) — A 15-year-old boy took LSD before he stabbed his father and uncle and was fatally shot by a Santa Cruz County sheriff’s deputy in a neighborhood north of Watsonville over the weekend.

Luke Smith took the drug with a friend before he used a 9-inch knife on his father and uncle at a home in the 800 block of Amesti Road, sheriff’s officials said.

“His actions Saturday morning were out of character,” Sheriff Jim Hart said during a news conference at sheriff’s headquarters in Santa Cruz this afternoon.

It appeared Luke had an adverse reaction to the drug and turned hostile to the friend, who left 15 minutes before the stabbings took place, Hart said.

“In that state of mind he was very dangerous,” the sheriff said.

The friend told investigators he took a smaller dose of the drug compared to Luke, according to Hart.

Four people have been arrested for allegedly selling the drug to Luke and his friend, Hart said. The suspects have been identified as Taylor Filson, 28, Bradley Hodge, 24, Thomas Negron, 20, and Nathaniel Trecaso, 28.

Deputies responded to a reported stabbing just before 3 a.m. Saturday when they found the victims who were quickly taken to a hospital for multiple, severe wounds, Hart said.

The father’s lung collapsed and the uncle was stabbed many times in his chest and arm, according to Hart.

Sheriff’s officials played 911 calls taken that morning that offered a description of the suspect. One of the reports came from Luke’s uncle who said he was stabbed near his heart.

Deputies were able to locate Luke armed with a knife near the scene on Pioneer Road about 10 minutes later with help from Watsonville and Capitola police officers, sheriff’s officials said.

Law enforcement officers spent 13 minutes talking to Luke, persuading him to drop the knife and surrender, Hart said.

At one point, Luke climbed over a fence and dropped the knife, but quickly retrieved the weapon, according to Hart.

Deputies and assisting officers also deployed 40mm foam rounds, Taser stun guns and a K9 unit that bit him, but it all had no effect on him, Hart said.

In video footage taken from Vigil’s body-worn camera, the deputy and other officers yelled at Luke to drop the knife. The device fell during the encounter, but was supplemented with video from a Capitola police officer’s body-worn camera that captured the shooting and its aftermath.

Luke threatened the officers, which led Deputy Chris Vigil to fire the single shot that killed the 15-year-old boy, the sheriff said.

An autopsy showed Luke died from a gunshot wound to the chest, according to Hart.

Luke was fighting with the police K9 while holding the knife in his right hand and seen raising his right arm before the shot was fired, sheriff’s officials said.

The deputy was only able to shoot at Luke’s upper torso because the K-9 and its handler were about 5 feet away from the suspect, Hart said.

Deputies are trained to aim for their target’s center mass, the sheriff said.

About a half-dozen officers who surrounded Luke rendered aid to him after the K9 removed the knife, according to sheriff’s officials.

One of the officers is heard telling the suspect to keep breathing and asking the boy to squeeze his hand.

Vigil has been placed on administrative leave, which is routine in officer-involved shootings, Hart said.

Vigil is a county resident who has nine years of experience in law enforcement working at Santa Cruz police, Atherton police and the sheriff’s office, according to Hart.

The deputy has more than 100 hours of training in various techniques including crisis negotiation, CPR and 21st Century policing concepts, Hart said.

The knife that was recovered from the shooting scene had a 4-inch blade and possibly had blood on it, according to Dr. Lauren Zephro, a forensics services supervisor at the sheriff’s office.

The sheriff’s narcotics team was able to locate the suspected dealers on Saturday evening along with a significant amount of LSD at an alleged dealer’s home, Hart said.

The suspected dealer, Trecaso, was found unconscious, possibly from a drug overdose, and taken to a hospital where he remains Monday in a coma, according to Hart.

The suspects have been arrested on multiple alleged drug crimes, the sheriff said.

“This was a very unique, difficult and extremely challenging and upsetting situation,” the sheriff said.

Luke’s family has been struggling in coping with the incident, Hart said.

Luke was a student at Aptos High School where he was well-liked by everyone, Hart said.

The school is providing grief support for the school community and the sheriff’s office has sent school resource officers on campus to assist with the students, according to Hart.

Hart warned the public of the dangers in taking drugs. Drug treatment centers and law enforcement can’t keep up with the amount of stimulants being made.

“We know some kids are going to take drugs and this community is fairly permissive on that,” Hart said.

“When they do take drugs, particularly something like LSD or designer drugs, they really don’t know what they’re taking,” the sheriff said.

The county’s District Attorney’s Office will take over the criminal investigation into the deputy-involved shooting while the sheriff’s office will conduct an internal investigation, Hart said.

The sheriff plans to assemble a serious incident review board for the case led by Chief Deputy Craig Wilson along with three use of force instructors and three community members.

Source: http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/20...fatally-shot-by-santa-cruz-deputy-identified/

Police Body Cam Video:

this is why doing drugs and being anywhere that you could possibly interact with police while way too deep into the drugs effects is more dangerous than taking more drugs.

This is such an unusual reaction to LDS I have to wonder if this was NBomes or something like that, or early onset of schizophrenia.

It's pretty rare that a person would become murderously violent after taking LSD.

Did they do a toxicology report on him?

LucidSDreamr said:

this is why doing drugs and being anywhere that you could possibly interact with police while way too deep into the drugs effects is more dangerous than taking more drugs.

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Well he was going to be interacting with the police one way or another after stabbing his father and uncle (did they even live? Not sure the article mentioned).

I would NOT suggest that the police necessarily did anything wrong here (which you seem to be suggesting) or that they caused the problem rather than the kid himself taking the LSD or whatever it was.

They seemed to have tried every other method of subduing him though I didn't watch the whole video.

The drug itself shouldn't be a crime, but stabbing people is, and it doesn't matter if you are sober or on a drug, if you are violent and stabbing people you need to be dealt with.

The kid brought his own death on himself, regardless of the fact that drugs should all be legal IMO and that this was an extremely rare reaction.

Although now after watching the video (and I was glad I couldn't actually see the kid being shot) I still think even after all the police had tried before that they did NOT need to kill him.

I mean they said they shot him at the point at which he raised the knife against the dog but even while I love dogs their lives are IMO not worth the same as a human's, and no life was in danger other than the dog's.

So even if he'd stabbed the dog to death they could have shot him in the knee or even BOTH knees and there should not IMO be any reason to kill a boy armed with a knife while surrounded by multiple officers who had guns UNLESS maybe he'd had a PERSON (not a dog) in a position to kill him/her with the knife.

In this situation, even with their other tactics not working, I don't see how he couldn't have been taken in without shooting him straight in the chest and killing him.

Mycophile said:

This is such an unusual reaction to LSD

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Yeah, but when a 15-year-old takes a couple of hundred micrograms there really aren't any guarantees about what's going to happen.

NBOMe's are more likely to cause physical harm to the user, but I don't think they're any more likely than LSD to cause this kind of psychosis. People becoming violent on LSD is rare, but in cases of irresponsible use it's not unheard of.

Mycophile said:

Although now after watching the video (and I was glad I couldn't actually see the kid being shot) I still think even after all the police had tried before that they did NOT need to kill him.

I mean they said they shot him at the point at which he raised the knife against the dog but even while I love dogs their lives are IMO not worth the same as a human's, and no life was in danger other than the dog's.

So even if he'd stabbed the dog to death they could have shot him in the knee or even BOTH knees and there should not IMO be any reason to kill a boy armed with a knife while surrounded by multiple officers who had guns UNLESS maybe he'd had a PERSON (not a dog) in a position to kill him/her with the knife.

In this situation, even with their other tactics not working, I don't see how he couldn't have been taken in without shooting him straight in the chest and killing him.

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What you're talking about is shit from movies.

In real life, police are trained to use their firearms as what it is, a deadly weapon. You fire at center of mass and keep firing until the person ceases to be a threat. You don't shoot people in the knee, for 2 reasons. The first, it is extremely difficult to accurately shoot like that in that kind of situation, and two, shooting someone in the leg is still very likely to kill them in real life. Real life is not a movie, if you shoot someone, there is a good likelyhood they will die, there is nowhere you can accurately aim and not pose a high chance of killing the person. For that reason police are not trained to do that, either the situation calls for potentially deadly force with a firearm, or it doesn't. If it does, then you go for what's effective, you shoot at center mass until the threat is over. If it doesn't, you don't shoot at all, because shooting has a high probability of killing the person. You shoot someone in the leg, and they could easily still be dead in less that a minute from the blood loss.

I haven't seen the video, perhaps they should have tasered him, I don't know, I do know however that what you're suggesting just isn't practical in real life.

Um anyone else think he already has some demonic weird look about him anyways definetly not the person id feel OK with takin any pyschedillics

Mycophile said:

This is such an unusual reaction to LDS I have to wonder if this was NBomes or something like that, or early onset of schizophrenia.

It's pretty rare that a person would become murderously violent after taking LSD.

Did they do a toxicology report on him?

Click to expand...

It is incredibly rare for someone to have this type of reaction, but it wouldn't be the first time it's happened. There have been other incidents like this, but as you said the person always or at least nearly always suffered from some kind of mental illness to begin with. It would be unheard of for a completely sane, rational person to take a psychedelic and suddenly become murderously violent. However, from time to time people with schizophrenia and/or other severe mental illnesses to begin with have become violent after taking psychedelics. NBOMEs do have a higher potential for psychosis and also can cause heart attacks, but still I am inclined to think mental illness would likely need to be involved for something like this to happen even if it was an NBOME.

Has there been any tox report on what the substance was?

I think the cops handled it really badly tbh. That guy didn't have to die. The article seems to harp on about how well trained the cops were.

With so many cops and a dog (or dogs) surely they could have handled it better.

Wow the dealer ODed? I wonder on what ? Can't be on the acid he wouldn't be in a coma plus that's not really possible ? I wonder if he knew he was fucked and maybe shot up last fat shot Of heroin and decided fuck it

There was a vigil for Lucas and also for a mentally ill man that was shot and killed by police a month ago here. Neither death should have happened and our community is pretty upset.