BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KERO) — “I’m going to make you shoot me in front of everybody.”
That was just one of the phrases police say Fernando Jara — the husband of 5th District Supervisor Leticia Perez — yelled at them, according to an offense report detailing their response to the home on Alta Vista Drive on the morning of July 12.
Perez told responding officers that her husband was former CIA, suffered from PTSD and was able to kill someone using his bare hands, according to the documents. She told them Jara had been medically diagnosed with bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, and that he was not on his medication at the time.
Officers reported that Perez said Jara gets violent when he is off his medication — but never physical, only yelling.
She claimed he’d been “acting out all day,” stated she was “part of Lords of Bakersfield,” and that he was threatening to “bash her head in,” the documents state.
According to the report, as officers and mental health officials attempted to contact Jara in the home, he made threats to sue them, the county and the city — eventually escalating to threatening to make officers shoot him.
In order to take Jara into custody, police used a Taser for five seconds while they pulled him to the ground and placed him into handcuffs.
The report noted that a protective order was placed that same day for Perez and her children, barring Jara from going within 100 feet of them.
Supplemental reports from follow-up interviews with neighbors showed that neighbors noticed Jara’s behavior had changed in the last four months and believed he had stopped taking his medication. Neighbors told officers he would “zone out” and “lock eyes and stare.” Some described Jara as a “ghost.”
And Jara is due back in court July 25.
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