Fatal Police Shooting Deemed ‘Justifiable Homicide’

There are two very different interpretations of the violent scene that unfolded this fall when a Santa Barbara police officer shot and killed Brian Tacadena on De la Vina Street.

The District Attorney’s Office released a report Friday that calls the shooting a “justifiable homicide” and details how a night patrol officer confronted an aggressive man high on drugs who refused orders to drop a large knife he was carrying as he approached the officer. Members of Tacadena’s family, however, claim that Brian’s death was an example of police brutality, that the 46-year-old was mentally ill and could have been subdued with nonlethal force, and that the DA’s report contains major holes.

Tacadena took a bus from San Jose that arrived in Santa Barbara at approximately 7:00 p.m. on September 1, the report reads. He planned to stay with his sister in Santa Maria and later visit his daughter in Goleta, and records show he had just moved out of a residential treatment facility in Santa Clara County, where he was on probation for confronting a man in public with a knife. Not long after he arrived on the South Coast, Tacadena — on a medication that treats schizophrenia and bipolar disorder — texted his daughter, “I’m dead.”