STOCKTON-
A Stockton man armed with a hammer was shot and killed early Wednesday morning, and his family is calling it murder.
The incident happened at a home near Martinique Court and N El Dorado Street, according to the police department.
Officers attempted to Taze and use a police dog on the intoxicated suspect, they told FOX40, but when that didn’t work they were forced to open fire.
The family is very upset and claimed if the police department had let them talk to Matautu Nuu, the outcome would have been different.
“What do we do right now? We lost a loved one, you know?” Karisamasi Nuu, Matautu’s sister said.
She added, her family watcher her brother die.
“No they Tazed him and he was already falling and then they shot him still. like i just don’t understand,” she said.
Stockton Police Officers said they got a call around midnight Wednesday from the family, claiming he was drunk and was vandalizing their home.
“Which is a very dangerous situation and that he was vandalizing a house which actually elevates that danger even a little bit more for people inside the residence,” Officer Joe Silva, a spokesperson with the Stockton Police Department said.
Officers found Matautu at a stop sign. They claimed he was using a hammer as a weapon and pleaded with him to drop it. They added he yelled “shoot me.”
A tense situation unfolding in front of his family and neighbors.
“The family’s screaming, ‘He just has a hammer.’ The family is screaming to him, ‘just put down the hammer. Put down the hammer,'” a witness, who chose not to be identified, told FOX40.
According to witnesses, the situation escalated. Police used a Taser and a K-9.
“It got real violent the man struck the K-9 with the claw hammer and then when the handler went into rescue his dog that’s when the man was getting ready to attack,” Silva said.
That’s when Stockton Police Officers John Griffin and Jason Schaffer fired their guns.
The Nuu family said his brother wanted to speak with Matautu themselves but officers prevented him from doing so.
“My little brother’s the only one who could calm him down. So why did they not give us that choice,” Karisamasi explained.
The police department released Matautu’s prior arrest records claiming he had been arrested for public intoxication, resisting arrest and battery years ago.
