Secret files reveal details of police shooting that helped trigger 2012 Anaheim rioting

The beginning of the end for Caesar Ray Cruz came in the form of an email sent by an Anaheim gang cop to his colleagues on a rainy, windy afternoon in December 2009.

Detective Nathan Stauber alerted the group that he had received a tip from a confidential informant that 35-year-old Cruz, a discharged parolee and Placentia gang member, was in town with a loaded 9mm gun and a vow to stay out of prison.

Less than two hours after Stauber clicked “send” on that 2 p.m. email, Cruz was dead, caught in a barrage of 14 police bullets on Dec. 11, 2009, a loaded Ruger at his side, with the safety on.

Weekly protests outside the police station led by his mother, Theresa Smith, evolved into full-blown riots in 2012 as more young men were killed in altercations with Anaheim officers.

Now, for the first time, the Southern California News Group has obtained documents detailing the law enforcement investigation into Cruz’s shooting, including DNA reports, internal criticism and paperwork indicating a preliminary civil rights probe by the FBI. The documents were released under Senate Bill 1421, a new police transparency law that took effect in January.

The Southern California News Group has joined more than three dozen other media organizations to collect SB 1421 records in a collaboration called the California Reporting Project.

The 1,428 pages in the Cruz file offer the most detailed look at an officer-involved shooting that ignited Smith’s fierce activism and helped trigger civil unrest. In the end, Anaheim and district attorney investigators found the shooting justified and within policy.

The story begins with Stauber’s online missive, sent while he was stuck in court on other matters. Stauber asked gang team members and the anti-crime task force to find Cruz.

The email — in which Cruz’s first name is misspelled for the first of many times — telegraphed a disconcerting idea between the lines: An armed gang member is out looking for a fight.

“CI just called, discharged parolee (Ceasar ‘lil man’ Cruz) just landed at (redacted) with a loaded 9mm. He is from Atwood. (redacted) He has made comments in past he is not going back to prison.”

It continues: “I’m stuck in court. His photo is on my desk. Can anyone head out there in plain wraps. (And pls try not to burn my ci).”

From the photo on the desk, it was clear Cruz was on Stauber’s mind.

Criminal past for father of 5

Cruz was a married father of five who at the time of death was heading home to take his boys to football practice. “Mi Madre Theresa” read one tattoo festooning his chest. On his right thumb was “Atwood,” a Placentia neighborhood and the name of a gang.

Cruz served nearly three years in prison for shooting inside an inhabited home or vehicle, abuse or endangerment of a child’s health and drug possession. He was released in 2006 and completed his parole in 2007.

Stauber’s email brought out a slew of undercover police officers, who found Cruz’s green 1997 Suburban about 2:30 p.m., parked and unoccupied in an Anaheim neighborhood. They waited until Cruz returned to the SUV, then tailed him for about an hour before trying to pull him over, records say.

Stauber, who had left court and joined the surveillance, radioed the team that Cruz reportedly had a gun wrapped in a blue cloth, stuck into the waistband of his pants. It is illegal in California for convicted felons to possess guns.

Two marked police cars were sent to the area, while the unmarked vehicles kept tabs on Cruz. A K-9 officer also was dispatched.

Attempt to stop SUV fails

After following Cruz past Westmont Elementary School, a marked car tried to pull him over for a broken brake light, but he continued at a slow speed, documents said.

“It looks like he’s formulating a plan and he’s not stopping right away,” Stauber later told investigators. “Instead of yielding, it … looked to me like he was looking for a way out.”

Shortly after, Cruz turned into a Walmart shopping center at 440 N. Euclid St., motioning with his left hand out the window, as if he were trying to tell officers where he was going. At various times he also seemed to be digging around inside the Suburban’s center console or talking on a cellphone, the officers reported.

Cruz stopped in the parking lot, prompting one police car to block his way at the end of the aisle. It looked to officers like he might comply. But Cruz accelerated forward, so hard his wheels spun. Then he stopped and reversed, smashing into a marked police car behind him.

‘Now he’s getting aggressive’

“That was like an assault where he’s no longer just trying to flee,” Stauber said. “Now he’s getting aggressive in ways trying to get out. He actually, uh, rammed the unit.”

Stauber had jumped out of his unmarked car and was taking cover, Glock in hand.

“I had my gun out, ‘cause I’m worried that he’s gonna come out shooting. I’m scared and, you know, that’s why,” he told investigators.

According to Stauber, Cruz began to get out of the car on the driver’s side. He appeared to be opening his jacket with his right hand.

In Stauber’s version, both of Cruz’s feet landed on the ground and then he “squared off” with the officer.

Their eyes met.

“He had a very shocked look on his face, his eyes got real wide, um, his mouth opened and I can tell that I surprised him, that I was that close to him,” Stauber said.

Then, he said, Cruz’s hands moved toward his waistband.

“He was gonna be able to shoot me relatively easy. I paused like half a second, while I was thinking about that, uh, that moment of like ‘crap, he’s actually really going for it,’ ” Stauber said. “I felt like I was giving him too long.”

Officers open fire

Stauber said he heard another officer fire two rounds. Then Stauber fired two himself. Other officers joined in. Stauber told investigators Cruz still seemed to be “pulling on his waistband,” so he fired two more times. In all, police fired 14 times, the report says; nine bullets hit Cruz. At least one officer appeared to shoot through Cruz’s SUV door.

Cruz went limp, Stauber remembered.

Firing at Cruz were officers Mike Brown, two shots; Kelly Phillips, four shots; Bruce Linn, two shots, Stauber, four shots; and Philip Vargas, two shots. Three years later, Phillips would fatally shoot another 21-year-old man, sending protesters into the street.

When the bullets stopped flying outside Walmart, Cruz was hanging out his open car door, his seat belt still engaged. A police detective unlatched the belt, but Cruz was so badly tangled that officers had to cut it off of him to perform CPR. He had nothing in his waistband, no gun in his hands.

Mother doubts police

Smith, Cruz’s mother, questions the police report.

“How do you get out of a car with the seat belt on? I know for a fact that the door did not open,” Smith said. “The door had been broken for a couple of months. He had to crawl out the window or go through the passenger side.”

Anaheim police Sgt. Jeff Mundy said last week that besides other officers, at least one civilian saw Cruz out of the car. It is likely the seat belt was loose enough to allow him to maneuver, Mundy said.

As a result, he said, “Mr. Cruz’s behavior and movements caused officers to believe he intended to harm them, which resulted in the officer-involved shooting.”

He was pronounced dead at 4 p.m., minutes after arriving at UCI Medical Center.

Gun found on seat

Crime scene investigators found a gun partially wrapped in a blue bandana on the passenger seat of Cruz’s Suburban. There was no bullet in the chamber, but there were 10 Winchester brand rounds in the magazine. The gun’s safety was on.

Smith has long said she believes the gun was planted.

DNA tests on the hand grip show genetic material from three people. Cruz could not be excluded as a minor contributor, according to crime lab documents. Cruz’s DNA, however, was not found on the gun’s magazine.

A plastic bag containing 0.04 grams of methamphetamine was found on the Suburban’s floorboard, records said.

Smith, who viewed her son’s body before burial, has complained that he was shot in the back. An autopsy showed bullet wounds to the back of the head, left side of his upper chest, left inner thigh, left upper thigh and a graze to his left elbow.

Bullets were recovered from the right side of his front lower abdomen, the left lower neck, above the front teeth, one from the right hip and one from the right rear flank.

Police missteps

While the shooting was considered justified, not all of the operation was fine tuned. A postmortem showed that one of the officers, Vargas, shot into a crossfire and may have hit a police vehicle. Another criticism was that officers failed to use air surveillance, which would have allowed them to better follow Cruz.

One plainclothes officer was further criticized by brass for not wearing his police vest.

In the file is a one-page letter faxed to the police department in 2009 from the FBI. It states the federal agency was doing a preliminary civil rights investigation into the shooting. The FBI requested all reports compiled in the shooting as well as the names and birth dates of the involved officers.

Also requested were any videos of the shooting. A spokesman for the FBI said Friday the case was declined by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Santa Ana.

Prosecutors’ probe questioned

The Cruz file contains the district attorney’s report as well as internal Anaheim documents. Smith, whose family accepted a $175,000 settlement from the city in 2015, was dubious that prosecutors did a legitimate investigation.

“There’s too many discrepancies,” Smith said. “Do I believe the report? Absolutely not.”