CITRUS HEIGHTS-
Citrus Heights Police have confirmed 22-year-old Gabriella Nevarez, also known as Relly Sanders, was the woman shot and killed by officers after Sunday’s high speed chase.
“I’ve been out here grieving all day. I just cant get over the fact that she’s gone,” Nevarez’s friend, Cody House, said Monday.
House lives in the apartment complex where Nevarez was shot to death after ramming two patrol cars with officers inside.
“I don’t think the ramming was intentional. I think it was her trying to get out, realizing another cop was in there and over correcting it,” House said.
Many of Nevarez’s friends and family members say she took her grandmother’s car during an argument. They have different theories of what prompted the chase and why it turned deadly.
“Her grandmother, she knew who took the car,” Nevarez’s cousin, Steven Bonds, told FOX40.
Bonds said Nevarez and her grandmother, Mary Beasley, had ongoing problems resulting in he police being called out to their residence multiple times.
“I expected they should have known it was more of a domestic situation,” said Bonds.
“She said it is my granddaughter who took the car and they tried to claim they didn’t hear that, That they thought it was a male at first,” said House.
“Their faces changed when they saw it was a girl,” said witness Marsha McClade.
Police said they responded to a report of a stolen vehicle, tracking Nevarez in the car through its LoJack system. They said Nevarez fled the scene after being pulled over on the 7000 block of Madison Avenue in Citrus Heights.
She did so, police said, by ramming one patrol car and driving at high speeds on the wrong side of the road. They stopped Nevarez again on the 7500 block of Sunset Avenue in Fair Oaks. They said they opened fire, killing Nevarez after she rammed yet another patrol car at this second location.
Lisa Bowman with the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office says LoJack hits for stolen vehicles occasionally return additional information that may or may not include possible suspects. She could not confirm whether or not the police who shot Nevarez knew she was Beasley’s granddaughter during the incident. Bowman said regardless, it would not have been at the forefront of their thoughts. Bowman said the officers main concern would be that Nevarez was putting not only the officers in grave danger, but also other drivers on the road.
“I can’t blame police, you know, because I wasn’t here, I didn’t see it,” said Bonds.
Bonds said Nevarez was taking Prozac and other medications to treat mental illness, and that she hadn’t been getting much sleep.
“You know she had her problems but we always knew she would outgrow them if she had a chance. But she didn’t get the chance,” said Bonds.