An attempted carjacking by a man in Stockton left one suspect shot dead by police. The remaining two suspects are still on the loose, Officer Joseph Silva with the Stockton Police Department said.
The shooting happened Wednesday morning in the area of West Lane and Knickerbocker Drive.
The officers were in the area because it was identified as a high-crime area in the city. After seeing the cop cars, the three men took off running. At one point, one of the suspects jumped into a car and tried to kidnap the woman behind the wheel and take the car.
Robert Rambonga Jr. was on his way to work, when he saw the action unfold and recorded it on his phone
"Dude was running across the street, cops...chasing him. He leapt into somebody's...car. They got him at gunpoint. Somebody's about to get shot," Rambonga narrates.
The woman in the car, 29-year old Danial Bryant, describes the moment the suspect jumped in.
"He hops my window and he asked me to go. He said, 'go miss, please miss, just please go," Bryant said. "I was scared. I didn't know what to do...he was yelling at me and I was yelling at him and the cops were yelling at him, too."
As Bryant and the suspect, identified as Stockton resident Rodney Watts, 35, struggled, "one Stockton police officer fired his department-issued weapon, striking the suspect. The officers then immediately rescued the adult woman from her vehicle by pulling her out," Silva said. Medics were called, but the suspect died at the scene.
Bryant said she felt the officers showed restraint.
"They held out for a minute, though. They did hold out for a minute. They warned him...a lot," Bryant said.
Rambonga described his feelings as he recorded the final moments.
"He was running. He jumped into somebody's window. And was trying to make 'em drive off. So if the cops just shot his (bleep) he deserved it. He deserved it," Rambonga said.
It marks the sixth officer-involved shooting in three months for our region, three in which the suspect was killed. Other incidents happened in South Sacramento, Fairfield, Ripon and Rancho Cordova.
This is a developing story, refresh this page for more information as it becomes available.
