BURBANK – No criminal charges will be filed against Burbank police officers involved in the fatal shooting of a man who allegedly threatened to shoot people at a Home Depot store last year, the state Attorney General’s Office announced Wednesday.
Ruben Ramos, 47, of Los Angeles, was shot by police on May 27, 2023, outside the store in the 1200 block of Flower Street in Burbank.
According to the Burbank Police Department, Ruben had called police claiming he was in a vehicle in a parking lot at the store, armed with a gun, and saying he planned to shoot people.
“When the officers arrived, they located the man still seated in a vehicle,” police said at the time. “The officers and the man had a brief verbal exchange followed by the suspect’s aggressive actions, which precipitated an officer-involved shooting.”
Officers immediately called for medical aid and paramedics took Ramos to Providence Holy Cross Trauma Center, where he died from his injuries, police said.
No officers or shoppers were injured during the shooting, Fekety said.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta’s office investigated the shooting, pursuant to Assembly Bill 1506, which requires a state prosecutor to investigate law enforcement shootings resulting in the death of an unarmed civilian.
According to a statement from Bonta’s office Wednesday, when officers contacted Ramos in the parking lot in response to the report of a person with a gun, “Mr. Ramos pulled an unknown object, later identified as a black knife, out of his right pocket and pointed it at the officers while maintaining a shooting stance, at which point he was fatally shot.”
The AG’s investigation “concluded that the evidence does not show, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the officers involved acted without the intent to defend themselves and others from what each of them reasonably believed to be imminent death or serious bodily injury,” according to Bonta’s office.
The AG’s office did make recommendations to the Burbank Police Department, including one calling on the agency to require officers to check all weapons used during such an incident to preserve potential evidence. The agency also recommended that the department continue efforts to expand the size and the operating hours of its Mental Health Evaluation Team and boost training of officers in dealing with people with mental illness.