A Silicon Valley tech worker was fatally shot by police this week after allegedly stabbing a roommate.
Santa Clara police responded to a disturbance call that quickly escalated to a stabbing earlier this week. A police officer responding to the incident fatally shot the alleged attacker.
The four men in the apartment were all “high-tech workers,” though the suspect had been unemployed “for one and a half years already,” the house manager for the property claimed in an interview with local news KTVU. It’s not yet clear which Bay Area tech company the roommates worked for.
The incident took place in the early morning hours on Wednesday at the 1800 block of Eisenhower Drive in Santa Clara, California. The town is at the center of Silicon Valley, housing the headquarters of major technology companies like Nvidia, AMD, Intel, and ServiceNow.
The coroner is still working to locate and notify the next of kin of the suspect, so the name was being withheld as of Friday, Santa Clara police department chief Corey Morgan said in a press briefing on Friday afternoon.
The incident was reportedly not the first time police had been dispatched to the residence. On Aug. 12, police were called to resolve a disturbance over an air conditioning unit at the household between the same two men, KTVU reported. The house manager allegedly started an eviction process for the suspect after the Aug. 12 incident, and proceedings had wrapped up last week.
What we know about the incident
Shortly after 6 a.m. on Wednesday morning, Santa Clara police officer Robert Allsup responded to a 911 call from a Santa Clara area apartment.
“As officers were responding to the location, they received information that the situation had escalated and the suspect was now stabbing the victim,” Morgan told press.
After kicking open the front door, the officer says he saw four people in the hallway, with the suspect straddling the victim, pinning the body down to the ground with a knife in his hand, according to body cam images shared with press at a briefing.
When the suspect raised the knife, the officer responded with four gunshots. The police say the suspect fell on the ground, and was later transported to a local hospital where he was pronounced dead, Santa Clara police said.
The stabbing victim survived the attack, and was treated for multiple stab wounds to their hands, chest, lung, and abdomen. Based on witness statements, the police said, the suspect used two knives in the assaults.
The matter is still under investigation.
