When he received residence from work early on a Sunday afternoon in March, Alex Gutierrez known as for his youngest daughter and smiled as she popped out of her room to greet him.
She was normally buoyant and effusive, however this time she actually hammed it up, hugging and kissing the case of Propel Health Water he’d introduced residence from the shop. That it was her favourite appeared solely becoming for a woman all the time in movement.
The 67-year-old La Puente man laughed at his teen’s efficiency, then headed inside to take a nap.
Prior to now, 17-year-old Johanna Gonzalez had struggled with psychological well being issues, listening to voices and flying into uncontrollable suits and outbursts. However as we speak appeared to be day.
Then, round 7 p.m. Gutierrez wakened to the sounds of offended voices. Johanna screamed at her mom, then flew out of the home. The winter sky was already darkish, however the teen stormed to the closest sheriff’s station a couple of mile away.
Johanna Gonzalez.
(Julie Slattery-Miller)
She banged on the door till a deputy strolled up, stretching his proper arm throughout his physique towards the deal with — and leaving the gun on his proper hip uncovered as he answered.
With out hesitation, Johanna plucked the gun out of its holster, kicking off a battle. A leaked video of the incident reviewed by The Occasions confirmed the deputy punching the lady twice, apparently in an ill-fated try to disarm her.
Lower than 20 seconds later, Johanna shot herself within the head. She died on the ground of the Business Sheriff’s Station.
“It’s simply unbelievable,” Gutierrez advised The Occasions in an interview. “How can a 17-year-old lady so simply disarm a sheriff’s deputy?”
Greater than a month later, that’s one of many many unresolved questions on what occurred that evening contained in the sheriff’s station. Johanna’s mother and father have questions concerning the deputy’s coaching. The household’s lawyer desires to know the deputy’s identify. And a number of other folks inside the division have raised questions on why his weapon wasn’t higher secured and what sort of holster he was utilizing.
Division officers have mentioned little publicly, however just a few weeks after the lady’s loss of life, they despatched an e mail reminder to all deputies, instructing them to not use unapproved holsters or weapons. Although officers didn’t reply a wide range of questions for this story — together with the identify of the deputy or whether or not he was carrying an authorized holster — the division mentioned in a press release to The Occasions that “a number of layers of overview” are underway, together with an inner administrative investigation.
“Our personnel that have been concerned have been extraordinarily distraught and the Division provided our Psychological Companies to them,” the assertion mentioned. “Our ideas are with the household throughout this troublesome time.”
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Nearly from the start, Johanna had a tricky life. She was born in 2006 in North Carolina, the youngest of three kids in a household that moved usually. Earlier than she was large enough to stroll, her mom was deported to El Salvador and her aged father appeared on the verge of dropping custody. So the kids’s aunt and uncle — Miriam and Alex Gutierrez — took in all three children.
Undated handout photograph of 17-year-old Johanna Gonzalez.
(Courtesy of Gutierrez household)
The couple already had a son of their very own residing at their ranch-style home in a working class a part of La Puente, with a papaya tree out entrance and a rubber tree within the again. Miriam labored as a seamstress and Alex was a truck driver. And some years after taking within the Gonzalez kids, Alex and Miriam took in two different kids from one other member of the family.
“We all the time needed an enormous household,” Miriam mentioned.
For a time, that they had it.
The Gutierrezes have been the one mother and father Johanna had actually recognized — and he or she known as them mother and pa. From a younger age, she was adventurous and all the time in movement — gardening, doing chores, asking to tag alongside along with her mother and father for easy errands. She favored to skateboard and run and dreamed of changing into a paramedic.
However as Johanna moved into her teenagers, she began having hassle. She nonetheless did nicely in class, getting principally A’s and B’s. And he or she was nonetheless her regular ebullient self at residence. At evening, although, she began slipping out the window to fulfill an older man.
It’s not clear what Johanna thought the connection was, however Alex is blunt when speaking about it now: “He was sexually abusing her and getting her into medication.”
However he and Miriam didn’t discover out about it for years.
Within the meantime, Johanna began having temper swings and what Miriam described as “episodes.” Typically, she advised her household she heard voices — and sometimes they’d catch her in her room, speaking to them. Ultimately, a physician advised Alex and Miriam their daughter may need schizophrenia and bipolar dysfunction, however that she was so younger it was arduous to make sure of a prognosis.
A few of Johanna’s odd habits began to make a bit of extra sense about two years in the past, after she confessed to a cousin about her nighttime departures. The day Alex discovered of it, he put in cameras throughout the home so Johanna — then 15 — couldn’t hold getting out at evening.
However that didn’t put an finish to the issues. Based on Alex and Miriam, Johanna lashed out and made an allegation of sexual abuse towards a person the Gutierrezes had let dwell within the den. Little one welfare staff quickly eliminated Johanna and her siblings. Based on Miriam and Alex, the opposite kids have been allowed to return nearly instantly. However Johanna went to dwell in a locked facility the place she may get therapy.
She took treatment and appeared extra steady. The person who’d abused her was ultimately arrested and sentenced to probation, her mother and father mentioned. And whereas Johanna was residing outdoors the house, Miriam visited her each likelihood she received. By early this 12 months, Johanna was doing nicely sufficient to return residence for an prolonged go to.
However on the afternoon of March 24, Johanna and her mom received right into a battle — about when she’d be capable to substitute her damaged cellphone. She shouted that she needed to depart, that she needed to hit a cop and go to jail.
Hoping to calm her, Miriam known as Johanna’s brother Daniel, 19, and put the decision on speakerphone. Johanna advised him she’d fairly die than return to the ability.
Simply earlier than 7:30 p.m. she ran out the entrance door, her father mentioned. He known as 911 for assist discovering her. He mentioned he warned the dispatcher that Johanna had a historical past of psychological well being issues and that she appeared to be having some form of episode.
In the meantime, her mom jumped within the automotive to observe her, driving slowly a bit of methods behind in order to not get too shut and anger her additional. It was a aid when she watched Johanna stroll as much as the sheriff’s station and begin banging on the door.
Miriam parked outdoors and waited, pondering she’d give her daughter a couple of minutes to settle down earlier than following her in.
By then, deputies responding to the 911 name have been already on the household residence speaking to Alex. He advised them what occurred, mentioned his daughter wanted a psychological well being analysis. The deputies listened. However when their radios crackled to life, they abruptly advised Alex they wanted to depart.
Again on the station, the fireplace division arrived, and Miriam heard the hum of a helicopter overhead.
Then a deputy walked to the automotive and requested her: “Is that your daughter inside?” Forty-five minutes handed earlier than he advised her that Johanna was useless.
Shocked, Miriam adopted him inside and waited for her husband to reach. The couple hoped for solutions, however as an alternative, they mentioned, the deputies separated them for questioning. The deputies offered little info in return.
Six weeks later, they nonetheless haven’t.
One factor Johanna’s mother and father did get was an opportunity to see surveillance footage from contained in the sheriff’s station. However Alex and Miriam didn’t wish to keep in mind their daughter that manner. So as an alternative, the household’s lawyer — Delaney Miller — watched it, together with Johanna’s older brother.
To Miller, the footage was grueling to observe. Afterward, he had extra questions. He nonetheless needed to know who the deputy was, and the way it was potential for a 17-year-old lady to seize his gun so rapidly. However he additionally puzzled why the deputy had seemingly let his guard down when he opened the door.
“She was banging on the door for 30 seconds, they usually’d already acquired a name about somebody becoming her description that was in misery,” Miller mentioned. “And the best way that this door was opened with none effort to guard the holster is disturbing. You count on law enforcement officials to be prepared for something and to not make a state of affairs worse.”
A number of sources inside the division — who requested to stay nameless as a result of they weren’t approved to talk on the report — raised a few of those self same issues, declaring that their coaching teaches them to remain on guard and shield their weapons.
“He ought to have opened the door along with his nongun hand,” one deputy mentioned. “We’re skilled to maintain our gun aspect away from anybody we are available in contact with.”
However to Daniel, these issues weren’t what caught with him essentially the most after reviewing the footage of the evening his sister died.
“I may see how a lot ache she was in,” he mentioned. “I simply watched her face.”
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A month and a half after Johanna’s loss of life, her household nonetheless feels her presence. Her image looms massive over their lounge. Typically, fleetingly, Daniel nearly thinks he can hear her voice.
Simply contained in the entryway, the household created a shrine they deliberate to depart up for 40 days. It held footage to recollect her by, candles to assist her soul discover its manner and water, in case her soul will get thirsty. Breaking with custom, there was additionally a cup of Propel.
As Alex watched the liquid disappear a bit of extra every day, he knew it was evaporation at work. However part of him nonetheless hoped: Perhaps it was her.
