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SAN JOSE — Authorities have cleared three San Jose police officers in the fatal May 2019 shooting of a man who ran over one of them while trying to escape from a carport, an encounter shown in new detail on body-camera footage released with a shooting report by the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office.
The report written by prosecutor Rob Baker largely affirms previous accounts of the shooting by police investigators, and concludes that officers Aaron Alvarez and Edward Carboni legally shot 24-year-old Efren Esquivel as he drove at Sgt. James Mason, who also legally opened fire before he was hit, dragged and then pinned against another parked car.
The three officers “only fired their weapons as a last, and necessary, resort following multiple attempts to de-esacalate the situation and resolve it without force,” Baker wrote. “Only when Esquivel ignored their attempts to surrender peacefully and drove at Sergeant Mason at a high rate of speed posing a clear threat of injury or death did they fire their weapons.”
A previously undisclosed fact revealed in the Wednesday report is that Esquivel had been sought by police after he stole a Santa Clara County Sheriff deputy’s personal car that was idling in a San Jose driveway the morning of May 4, 2019.
When the deputy reported that her 2011 Toyota Camry disappeared around 11:30 a.m. after she briefly went back into her house, she told San Jose police that her home-security camera recorded the car theft, and that her cell phone and badge — but not her firearm — had been in the vehicle.
The deputy later pinged her cell phone and told police that her car was in the area of Story Road and Kollmar Drive in East San Jose, and about an hour after the theft, a police officer drove through parking lots and alleyways in the area before spotting the stolen car in a carport behind an apartment complex on Kollmar Drive, according to the report.
Mason, Alvarez and Carboni soon arrived at the scene with a fourth officer who had a police dog. The report states that was followed by a few brief exchanges where the officers tried to coax Esquivel out of the car as he said repeatedly, “What did I do?” At some point, Esquivel climbed out through the sunroof, climbed and stepped onto adjacent cars, then went back to the Camry.
To that point, the encounter was calm, according to the report and video. Carboni had his Taser out and Mason was holding a firearm, but they were heard discussing a plan for the initial officer on the scene to physically grab Esquivel and take him into custody.
But then Esquivel dropped down back into the Camry, and started the engine. The report states that moments earlier, he had something that sounded like “You’re gonna have to shoot me,” and soon after, Carboni tells the other officers, “He’s gonna come right towards us.”
The Camry rammed into one of the patrol vehicles parked to keep Esquivel from leaving and when that didn’t clear out enough space, he rammed it again, creating an opening that allowed him to make a sharp right turn and head directly at Mason.
“Sergeant Mason did not believe Esquivel would be able to make the turn so sharply and quickly as he did,” Baker wrote. “Moreover, Sergeant Mason had nowhere to safely retreat.”
Mason, Alvarez and Carboni all opened fire on the Camry, which hit and knocked Mason to the ground and dragged him until the car hit a support pole, leaving the sergeant pinned between the Camry and another car. The body-camera video shows Mason lying on the ground in visible and audible pain, with tire tread marks on his uniform.
Mason suffered a shattered scapula and bruises, and is still with the department.
An autopsy confirmed that Esquivel died from gunshot wounds in his torso and right arm. A toxicology test also showed that Esquivel had a “near toxic” level of methamphetamine in his body when he died.
According to the report, Carboni fired 15 shots, Mason fired five shots, and Alvarez fired one shot. At the time of the shooting, Mason had been a San Jose police officer for 17 years after a decade with Burlingame police; Carboni had been with SJPD for seven months after being an officer at San Jose State University; and Alvarez had been with SJPD for about a year.
The report also reiterated post-shooting police statements that Esquivel was a known gang member with multiple past auto-theft convictions who, according to prosecutors, had told at least one person “I’m never going back to prison.”
Carboni was involved in another fatal police shooting in 2019, when on Halloween he shot and killed 33-year-old Francis Calonge on North Jackson Avenue north of McKee Road after witnesses called 911 reporting Calonge was brandishing a pistol that would later be revealed as a replica handgun.
Calonge’s family has filed a wrongful death suit against Carboni and the City of San Jose in Superior Court on the premise that Calonge was mentally ill — on which there is consensus — and that he was shot by Carboni with a rifle from 100 feet away. Carboni was cleared by the DA’s office in that shooting as well, with police contending the officer had to believe the gun was real in the moment and was trying prevent a school shooting as Calonge walked toward Independence High School.
