MARTINEZ — A retired Pittsburg police officer who held Pleasant Hill police at bay during two standoffs over a 36-hour period is a “polite, pleasant, kind, calm” man who was spiraling downward during a mental health crisis and not a monster who wanted to kill police, his attorneys said Thursday.
“This is a textbook mental health case,” Chunliam Saechao’s defense attorney, Curtis Briggs, said Thursday outside the A.F. Bray Courthouse.
Prosecutors in Contra Costa County have charged Saechao, 40, with two counts of attempted murder of a police officer, as well as six counts of assault with a firearm on a police officer following the events last week in the Sherman Acres neighborhood off Monument Boulevard.
Superior Court Judge Patricia Hanlon delayed by a week Saechao’s scheduled arraignment Thursday and ordered him held at the county jail in lieu of $3.575 million bail.
Police had two standoffs with Saechao at his home on Cleopatra Lane beginning the evening of Dec. 7 after he barricaded himself inside the house, then allegedly shot his wife with a shotgun. She had found herself locked out and was trying to enter through a barricaded side door when she was shot, authorities said.
Saechao also faces one domestic violence charge, along with enhancements alleging use of a firearm.
“We can confidently say that he did not shoot his wife intentionally,” fellow defense attorney Tyler Smith said. “He did not intend to shoot anyone. I’ll just leave it at that.”
Pleasant Hill police Chief Scott Vermillion, in defending police actions earlier this week, said that authorities had determined that Saechao’s motivation was to goad law enforcement into a firefight that would result in the deaths of officers and ultimately, Saechao himself.
Vermillion said Saechao fired approximately 30 shots at armored vehicles during the second standoff, a number that police later revised to 20 in court documents. Saechao finally exited the home Saturday morning and surrendered.
Asked Thursday if he believed his client intended to kill police, Smith replied: “Absolutely not.”
“This is a former police officer himself. He did not intend to harm any police officers. He did not intend to kill anyone. That’s not at all what was going through his mind. That was not his mindset. He never had that intent. That’s something we will be able to show at trial.”
Instead, according to his attorneys, Saechao was a suffering a mental health crisis they said may be linked to his service with the U.S. Marines and in law enforcement. They said he is far from the violent person that authorities have portrayed him to be.
“He’s a good person,” Smith said. “This is a sweet person. He’s scared. He’s frightened. He’s a little bit despondent. He’s in shock right now. But this is someone who always wants to do good, and who wants to serve, and who did serve … I hope people don’t rush to judgment. There is a presumption of innocence.”
According to Pleasant Hill police, Saechao’s family members reported noticing a change in him, noting a more paranoid demeanor and a new fixation on religion.
“Oh my God, I’m sorry,” Saechao allegedly said after shooting his wife in the legs. He then repeatedly asked God to save her but said God didn’t want him to allow her inside, according to police.
“We want the public to remember, a case like this underscores that you don’t do a tour in Iraq, then go do a career in law enforcement in our communities without being extremely traumatized by it,” Briggs said. “You’re dealing with the worst things.”
A SWAT team and crisis negotiators were deployed in the first standoff, which began about 7:05 p.m. Thursday. Police left the area en masse early Friday morning and announced that Saechao was not a threat to the public, a decision that drew criticism from local residents — even more after police returned to the same location less than 24 hours later.
Asked if he agreed with how police handled the situation, Briggs said: “If you ask me or anybody in the community, they’re all gonna tell you the same thing: Of course not.”
Police returned to the scene about 11:45 p.m. Friday night, declaring that Saechao had become a public safety threat.
During the second standoff, police say in court documents, Saechao fired about 20 shots at police vehicles, using several guns, including an AR-15 and a shotgun.
“There was a mental health crisis going on,” Briggs said. “Law enforcement was aware of that. They appeared to me to have mishandled the situation, and that’s something we’re going to be looking at carefully.
“Did they handle a mental health crisis correctly the way they should in modern times based on everything we now know about what veterans and police officers go through? Or did they exacerbate the situation? Is this the ideal scenario where a social worker could’ve gotten involved early or a psychologist gotten involved early? Or do you want to surround somebody that’s having this kind of crisis with 50 or 60 assault rifles and a tank?”
After he fired at police, Saechao allegedly exited the home, pulled out a pistol, pointed it at police, and waved it around while ignoring police commands to drop the weapons. The officers stayed put and Saechao eventually went back inside, police said.
Saechao surrendered at 7:52 a.m. Saturday and was arrested. Prosecutors charged him Wednesday, naming each of the eight officers inside a police vehicle as victims of either attempted murder or assault with a firearm.
Inside the home, in addition to several firearms, police reportedly found empty bottles of liquor and antidepressant medication. They also noted that during the standoff Saechao had posted on social media, “Come try to kill me if you dare I’ll kill you back,” which police interpreted as a threat against the officers on-scene. Saechao had been posting unstable social media messages before and during the standoffs.
Source: www.mercurynews.com