The Oxnard police officer who shot and killed a man brandishing a knife last year won’t face criminal charges, though the city has paid more than half a million dollars to settle a lawsuit from the man’s family.
Cristian Baltazar Torres, 18, was killed April 7 , 2023, after police responded to 911 calls from residents of a South Oxnard apartment complex who said Torres was threatening them with a knife. Last week, the Ventura County District Attorney’s Office released its full report on the shooting , with the conclusion that Jarrod Sheffield, the officer who shot Torres, acted legally and appropriately.
District Attorney Erik Nasarenko’s report states that Sheffield “honestly and reasonably believed” that he and other officers were “under imminent threat of death or great bodily injury” and that “deadly force was necessary to defend himself and the other responding officers. Sheffield, the report states, “used no more force than was reasonably necessary to defend against the apparent danger posed by Baltazar Torres.”