GUERNEVILLE (BCN) — Petaluma police today released details of their investigation of the shooting by a sheriff’s deputy of a Guerneville man on his apartment balcony Wednesday afternoon.
The account by the Petaluma Police Department, which is investigating the officer involved shooting, comports with the sheriff’s office’s account of the incident.
Three sheriff’s deputies, Theodore Vanbebber, John Littrell and Matthew Lupton went to the Fife Creek Commons Apartment Complex at 16376 Fifth St. in Guerneville around 2:40 p.m. in response to a report of a man
brandishing a knife and acting erratically, Petaluma police Lt. Danny Fish said.
While contacting residents and witnesses, the suspect, 46-year-old Jeffrey Singleton, appeared on the small balcony of his second-floor apartment, Fish said.
The deputies asked Singleton to come out of his apartment to be interviewed but he refused and went back inside the apartment, Fish said.
Singleton quickly reappeared with a pump action shotgun and refused the deputies commands to put the weapon down, Fish said.
Singleton used the pump action in the front part of the barrel that places a shell in the chamber and pointed the shotgun at the deputies, Fish said.
Vanbebber fired four rounds, one of which struck Singleton in the shoulder. Deputies Littrell and Lupton did not fire at Singleton, Fish said.
Singleton fell to the floor of the apartment and he was taken to Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital for treatment of non life-threatening wounds, Fish said.
After serving a search warrant and examining the shotgun, the deputies determined it was not loaded, Fish said. The three deputies have been placed on paid administrative leave.
“Petaluma Police Department detectives have interviewed numerous witnesses to this incident and the information they have received thus far is consistent with the deputies statements and the evidence collected at the scene during the service of search warrants,” Fish said in a news release.
Petaluma police said Singleton remains in the intensive care unit of the hospital, is alert and awake and police hope to interview him today.