“There are no winners or losers in situations like this. The reality is that Ryan’s family and the deputy sheriffs who were involved in this case will have to remember this for their entire lives,” Dicus said.
Dicus said his deputies follow their training but added that the department is investigating the shooting and that prosecutors will do the same.
The Gainers are focused on burying their loved one but plan to file a lawsuit, the family’s attorney DeWitt Lacy told The Washington Post on Thursday.
“I get it … It may have been unnerving for an officer, but that doesn’t mean to get to shoot a 15-year-old dead,” Lacy said.
He said Gainer was upset Saturday because of a classic dispute: His parents wanted him to do his chores, but the teen wanted to listen to music or play video games. But Gainer’s developmental disorder heightened the emotions of the typical argument, Lacy said. The teen broke glass in the front door, Lacy said, but no one was hurt.
A family member called 911 asking for help because Gainer was “actively assaulting family members and damaging property at the residence,” according to a news release from the Sheriff’s Department.
The agency released two videos Wednesday, one from body-worn cameras of each of the first deputies to arrive at the house.
Dicus said the preliminary investigation shows both deputies shot and that three rounds in total were fired. The first deputy was at the house less than 30 seconds before Gainer charged at him.
That deputy’s footage shows the front door to the home was open as the deputy walked up, asking: “Where’s he at?”
Gainer appears from behind a corner inside the home holding the hoe and running toward the doorway, where the deputy was standing. The deputy pulls out his gun and yells: “Hey, get back! Get back or you’re gonna get shot!”
As the deputy runs from Gainer, he twists and points his gun at the teen. That is when deputies fired their shots, according to footage.
By the time the deputy stops running, a woman can be heard screaming as the camera shows the teen lying in the front yard, his body in a baby blue sweatsuit coming to rest.
“They shot him!” someone yells. “Oh my god!” a woman yells.
The deputy shouts orders them to get back multiple times.
“We’re gonna give him help,” the deputy tells them.
His attempt at reassurance is met with a woman screaming: “Why’d you shoot my baby?”
Someone yells “check him out, guys” as a third deputy approaches while putting on gloves. A woman asks “where the hell’s your Tasers?” A dog barks in the background.
Dicus during the news conference confirmed his deputies do have Tasers and pepper spray but that “those techniques don’t always work.”
The video shows a third deputy search the teen’s body and quickly indicate he has found a “knife” on the teen. Dicus provided no details about a knife, only saying that it appeared the teen also had a frying pan.
“You could have just Tasered him. Why did you have to shoot him?” a woman asks on the body-cam footage. The deputies don’t respond, and the one rendering aid calls for a compression patch under the teen’s armpit and starts CPR.
“Tourniquet is applied. We still have a pulse,” one deputy radios in.
The deputies spend several minutes trying to revive the teen, pumping his chest for CPR. Medics took Gainer to a hospital, where authorities said he died.
The video from the second deputy to arrive shows about 8½ seconds passed from the time he got out of his cruiser to when he fired.
Dicus said his deputies were dealing with a tough and fast-moving situation.
“There are no magic words,” he said. “We pay law enforcement officers to stop threats and stop violence.”
Dicus said deputies had been called to the house five times since January due to disturbances caused by the teen and each time helped calm him and get him medical treatment without use of force. Dicus added that it isn’t clear whether either of the deputies who shot Gainer knew the teen from those interactions or knew about his developmental or mental health.
Lacy said he assumes the deputies knew about Gainer, who was prone to running away and calling 911. Lacy said this is a relatively unpopulated and rural area of the high desert.
Dicus said the “social safety net needs to be strengthened” so his deputies aren’t dealing with situations more suited to mental health professionals.
“Law enforcement officers are our fists. We are civilized. They go out and do this work for us, and they need to be supported,” he said, calling for the community to unite.
But family members are angry and feel deputies didn’t do enough to de-escalate the situation.
“There’s no reason a 15-year-old autistic teen should be dead because he acted out without causing imminent danger,” Lacy said.
Read More: Police fatally shoot autistic 15-year-old who charged with garden tool, video shows
