She was a beloved Modesto restaurant owner, but early Sunday morning, she was shot and killed during in an officer involved shooting in Ripon.
The 46-year-old Evin Olson co-owned the Barkin' Dog Grill in downtown Modesto with her husband Hanibal Yadegar. The restaurant has been open since 2004.
In a news conference at the Stanislaus County Sheriffs Department in Modesto Tuesday afternoon, the department along with the Ripon Police Department explained their actions.
Ripon police said it began at 2:56 a.m. on Sunday when sheriff deputies responded to a 911 call at a business in the 4000 block of Sisk Road in Modesto.
The call was for an assault on a security guard. Officers then arrived on the scene and attempted to perform a traffic stop, but the vehicle took off.
A pursuit then began northbound on Highway 99 into Ripon. At 3:17 a.m. the car exited the E. Main Street off ramp. A short distance away on Tornell Circle, the vehicle finally stopped, but not for long, according to police.
"We tried voice commands and tried to get her to exit the vehicle. There was an attempt at what we would call a felony type stop to try to get the driver out of the vehicle to remove the danger of someone that was involved in a high speed pursuit," said Ripon Police Chief Edward Ormonde. "At some point in time during that contact, the vehicle went into reverse, it moved towards two deputies and one of the Ripon officers and at that time the firearm was discharged."
The car then maneuvered around patrol cars where another traffic stop was attempted, but the vehicle instead accelerated and struck the front of a home on Tornell Circle, said Ripon police.
Ormonde said officers attempted life saving procedures on Olson, but she died at the scene.
"Officers do their very best to avoid deadly force encounters. Again, why subject yourself to that kind of scrutiny, a criminal investigation, read your rights, treated as a suspect until proven otherwise. Remember, it's homicide until the District Attorney determines its justifiable homicide," said Stanislaus County Sheriff Adam Christianson.
The sheriff identified the lone deputy who fired the shots as 24-year-old Justin Wall whose been with the department since 2013. Christianson also stated that Wall is a K-9 handler and has had no past deadly force encounters and has a personnel file "full of accommodations."
"He's well-liked, good deputy sheriff," said Christianson.
The Modesto Bee reports that Olson suffered from bipolar disorder, according to her husband, and was undergoing a manic episode that started in January when she stopped taking her medication.
Yadegar told the Bee he had helped his wife get back on track before, but he couldn't this time. He said he was not home Sunday when his wife left their Modesto home.
Yadegar also told the newspaper his wife has a master's degree in fine arts from the University of California at San Diego in costume and set design.
Sheriff Christianson believes it may take weeks or months before all of the details of the investigation are completed. The Ripon Police Department is the lead investigative agency for the criminal investigation.
The San Joaquin County District Attorney's Office will be conducting an independent review of the shooting. The U.S. Justice department is also part of the investigation.
A determination will be made as to whether the shooting was a homicide or a justifiable homicide.
