Fatal Shooting Is 7th for City Police

For the seventh time this year, San Diego police have shot and killed a man they were attempting to arrest.

In the latest shooting, Monday night at a Denny’s restaurant parking lot in Mission Valley, a veteran undercover officer killed a man accused of taking his two young children from his wife, who recently filed for divorce. He was later found to be unarmed.

The man, identified as John Joseph Kelley, 30, an Englishman police say may have been in the United States illegally, apparently ignored the undercover officer’s several warnings to stop.

Kelley got into his car and, still ignoring admonitions by the detective, who by this point had drawn his gun, reached down as if to grasp something, police said. In response to the movement, Detective Leslie Oberlies, 51, fired five times. Three bullets hit Kelley, killing him on the spot.

Oberlies has been placed in an administrative role within the Police Department, a routine and automatic assignment for an officer who shoots someone, said homicide Lt. Dan Berglund.

Police said Kelley lived in Tierrasanta. But Deputy Coroner Jerry Hillbrand said Kelley was a transient who formerly held a job as a construction worker. Hillbrand identified Kelley’s wife as Ruki Kelley, who Berglund said was living in a hotel downtown.

Police suspected Kelley, who had recently been served with divorce papers, of taking his two younger sons, ages 6 and 3, and leaving them with a friend at a residence in the 10200 block of Caminito Toronjo.

Kelley’s wife told police he had called her and arranged to meet her at the Denny’s restaurant in the 1000 block of Camino del Rio South. Instead, she alerted police and gave them a picture of Kelley.

Oberlies, a 23-year veteran of the force, arrived at the scene and approached Kelley at the entrance to the restaurant shortly after 10 p.m., said Berglund, who said Kelley must have guessed Oberlies was a policeman, as he moved away before the detective identified himself.

Kelley “was a martial-arts expert and apparently very adept at the art, according to his wife, (who said) he does instruct,” said Berglund, adding that Oberlies drew his gun after the initial contact because he was aware of Kelley’s martial-arts background.

After yelling an obscenity at Oberlies, Kelley got into his car and started the engine while Oberlies, gun still drawn, faced the driver’s side of the car and ordered him to stop the engine and stay still, Berglund said.

Kelley “then reached down, and when he did, the officer fired five shots,” Berglund said. Police said they found no weapons in the silver Cadillac. Berglund didn’t say what Kelley could have been reaching for.

Three of the shots, which went through the driver’s side window, hit Kelley.

“He was an English subject from London. He had been deported at one time, according to his wife, and had obtained a false passport in Canada,” Berglund said.

“He had threatened to take the kids back to England.”

In 1987, Oberlies, who is attached to the criminal intelligence unit, was the lead police investigator in the case involving the Rev. Dorman Owens of the Bible Missionary Fellowship Church in Santee, who conspired to bomb a clinic where abortions were being performed.

Paul Downey, Mayor Maureen O’Connor’s press secretary, said Oberlies has also been assigned as security for large events involving the City Council.

Oberlies’ undercover work has spanned two decades, including monitoring anti-war groups in the 1970s.

“He’s a very good investigator who’s worked for intelligence for a long time,” said Lt. Paul Ybarrando, who used to supervise Oberlies.

Ybarrando said the department was investigating rumors that Kelley had a connection with the U.S. Navy SEAL teams in San Diego. But the executive officers of both SEAL groups here as well as the owner of the only company that has ever been contracted to teach martial arts to those SEAL teams said they had never heard of Kelley, said Lt. Rob Tillman, a public affairs officer with the Naval Special Warfare Command in Coronado.

Also, Tillman said, Kelley was never part of a liaison group from a foreign country working with the SEAL teams.

“He could have shown someone on the team something on a private basis,” he said.

“We’re exploring (the SEAL connection), but there’s no confirmation one way or another,” Ybarrando said.

Officials at the British Consulate in Los Angeles said Tuesday afternoon that they had not been notified of the death of any British subject in San Diego.

According to Ybarrando, there have been seven fatal shootings by San Diego police officers this year, and 19 shootings in all. In 1989, he said, there were eight fatal shootings through Aug. 31, and 16 total shootings through that date. The year before, he said, those figures are 10 and 19, respectively.

The shooting will be investigated by the department’s homicide unit, which will turn over its findings to the district attorney’s office. The shooting also will be reviewed by the Police Department’s internal affairs division. Finally, the Citizen Review Board on Police Practices will investigate.

Last month, that 20-member board was given the power to investigate every case in which a policeman’s bullet strikes a member of the public.

From 1985 to 1989, San Diego police fatally shot 33 people, said Arthur Ellis, vice chairman of the Citizen Review Board.

“We’ve had quite a rash the last few months,” Ellis said. “New York has far fewer incidences of deadly force used by its police department per 1,000 people.

“We’re in the process of being involved in reviewing this shooting,” he added.

Police spokesman Bill Robinson emphasized how thoroughly police shootings are reviewed.

“I know there have been a lot, but an officer uses deadly force to neutralize a deadly threat,” he said.

“These cases are extensively reviewed, internally and externally.”