Man killed by San Jose Police may have killed his child to trigger deadly confrontation
San Jose Police said they suspect that the man officers fatally shot had killed his child and called 911 in order to get into a deadly confrontation with police on Sunday.
He was as 48-year-old Fremont resident Mateusz Dzierbun.
Just before 3:30 p.m., officers were called to Cataldi Park for a report of a stabbing. When they arrived, they found a man with a "large kitchen knife" hunched over a 9-year-old who appeared to be bleeding.
Police said they tried to de-escalate the situation, but the suspect, Dzierbun, refused to follow their commands.
"During the verbal exchange, the suspect abruptly stood up, raised the knife, and charged at the officers," police said.
Two officers shot at the man, killing him. One officer has four and a half years of experience, the other more than 19 years, police said. Officers went to the child, but they were declared dead at the scene, police said. Dzierbun was taken to a hospital, where he later died.
Police said Dzierbun was the child's father and that he was the one who called police. But police said that during the call, Dzierbun stated it was an unknown person who was stabbing his child.
According to police, they suspect that Dzierbun killed his child and called police to get officers to fatally shoot him.
"These officers had no idea the frantic caller on the line was in fact the suspect himself," Police Chief Paul Joseph said. "A deranged man who had murdered his own son. Whose call for help was actually a twisted plan to force officers to shoot him. A final desperate and selfish act, suicide by cop."
Joseph said that in his more than 30 years of service with the San Jose Police Department, he's never seen anything comparable.
"The child suffered from injuries so severe that it's unimaginable they could have been inflicted by his own father," Joseph said.
Chief Joseph said the suspect has no criminal or mental health record in Alameda or Santa Clara counties, but he has moved throughout the country. Police are still investigating and hoping to find out more.
"While we do expect to learn more. One: This is for certain, we will never be able to make sense of such a senseless loss," Joseph said.
