San Jose: Police shooting reported at gas station near Eastridge Mall

SAN JOSE — A suspect apparently threatening to ignite a gas pump was shot by police in a confrontation at an Arco station near Eastridge Mall early Saturday, according to authorities.

The shooting occurred on Quimby Road just west of Capitol Expressway, near the southwest corner of the mall property. A brief San Jose Police Department statement did not specify the time of the shooting, but medical personnel were called to the area at 7:28 a.m.

Sgt. Enrique Garcia said the suspect, for whom no descriptive information was released, was taken to a local hospital.

According to police dispatch archives corroborated by law-enforcement sources, officers were called around 7:15 a.m. after an employee at the Arco station reported a suspicious man holding up a gas pump nozzle in one hand and a “lit lighter” in the other.

The employee activated the emergency valve shutoff as a precaution, and the man did not acknowledge officers’ attempts to talk to him, according to the dispatches. At one point, the man was seen stuffing paper into the end of the gas pump nozzle, and holding the lighter, which had a flame, near it.

About 10 minutes after the initial call, an officer could be heard reporting “Shots fired, shots fired,” into his radio. There are no dispatches that detail the sequence immediately leading up to the gunshots.

In the aftermath of the shooting, the suspect was reportedly conscious and talking after being shot at least once, but his condition was not immediately known Saturday morning.

Traffic on Quimby Road was either restricted or closed between Tully Road and Capitol Expressway, and the crime scene was expected to be up for most of the morning.

The incident marked the first officer-involved shooting of the year for SJPD. There were four such shootings in San Jose in 2019, all of which were fatal.

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