Man shot by Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s deputy ordered to stand trial

SANTA CRUZ — A 40-year-old Soquel man shot during an April confrontation with Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s deputies in an Aptos parking lot has been ordered to stand trial on several felony charges.

Santa Cruz County Superior Court Judge Syda Colgiati, after a brief preliminary hearing Tuesday morning, found that the prosecution showed probable cause exists in the case. Eli Burry, seated beside his attorney in court in a wheelchair, is charged with illegal possession of a firearm, resisting arrest and negligent discharge of a firearm, plus enhancements for serious felony violations and committing a felony while out on bail.

Burry was inside his car, parked on the night of April 6 down an Aptos shopping center alley, when a deputy on patrol stopped to run his plate, according to testimony Tuesday by Deputy Jordan Segal. After the deputy recognized Burry’s name from a special task force weapons seizure bust the year prior, he called for back-up, according to his testimony. Surrounding the vehicle, deputies repeatedly attempted to get Burry and his front-seat passenger to respond before Segal himself opened the car’s back door, reportedly releasing a visible plume of smoke. While ordering the men to exit from the vehicle, one deputy attempted to cuff Burry while another warned the man not to reach for the handle of what he allegedly believed was a firearm.

According to testimony, initial Sheriff’s Office reports and deputy body-worn camera footage released by the agency after the shooting, a verbal back-and-forth and short struggle between deputies and Burry ensued. The incident reportedly came to a head when a loud bang went off inside the car shortly before Burry emerged and began rapidly approaching deputies. The discharge later was determined to be a flare gun, wrapped in black tape and loaded with a shotgun shell, law officials said at the time. After the incident, deputies found a dome-like bump in the roof of Burry’s car, directly over the driver’s side front door, where Burry was seated, according to testimony.

Deputy Colum Cecil-Wherity shot Burry at least once after Burry appeared to reach inside his jacket while yelling “shoot me, shoot me” and continued to approach two other deputies, according to testimony and bodycam footage. Early this month, the Santa Cruz County District Attorney’s Office released a press release stating that it had concluded a four-month investigation into the shooting and would not bring any criminal charges against the three deputies involved in the shooting.

Questioned by defense attorney Micha Rinkus, Segal confirmed that Burry had not used menacing words or pointed a firearm at deputies. Later, Sheriff’s deputy Sgt. Jeffrey Simpson gave testimony detailing an inventory of the “numerous, numerous, numerous” weapons found inside Burry’s car three days later. Simpson said he recalled finding various ammunition rounds, six pellet guns, 13 knives, four machetes, four utility knives, a wooden club, a baseball bat, 15 throwing stars and five “crude homemade guns” made from galvanized pipe and duct tape handles.

Cogliati, before making her determination Tuesday, said that the circumstantial evidence of the numerous improvised weapons, combined with a court order prohibiting Burry from obtaining firearms lent support to the idea that “he wanted this flaregun to be a firearm … and it does appear he was doing anything he possibly could to possess something else that would be a firearm, notwithstanding his inability to legally obtain one.”