Officers were sent to a home on Zola Street multiple times in the week before a Point Loma man allegedly shot his mother and killed two other people, San Diego police said Thursday.
Investigators have yet to identify the two other victims, but on Thursday, they said they believe the killer is William Bushey, 60, who lived at the home with his mother for at least 15 years. A neighbor told NBC 7 she thought it was more than two decades.
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Capt. Matt Dobbs with the San Diego Police Department said he looked at police calls made within the last two years and found that officers were called to the home on both the afternoon of Aug. 16 and the morning of Aug. 19, just two days before June Bushey and the others were shot. Both incidents were made due to family members' concerns about William Bushey's behavior.
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Dobbs said officers determined through interviews with both William Bushey himself and others that both times his conduct, while verbally aggressive, did not rise to what is required by law for an emergency psychiatric hold. Also known as a 5150, a psychiatric hold is issued when someone has, for example, presented themselves as an immediate danger to themselves or others.
"In both cases, they rightly determined that it was a family disturbance," Dobbs said. "No crimes had been committed. Based on their conversations with Mr. Bushey himself in one case, and family members in another, he did not meet the criteria for an emergency psychiatric hold, so they left, leaving the family with resources to help handle the problem through the civil remedies."
"There were no specific threats made toward anyone in the family," Dobbs said. "No crimes had been committed. They were just concerned with his behavior."
Family members expressed to police that they were concerned about weapons in the home but didn't actually know if there were any, Dobbs said. In the 911 call on the 16th, that very topic was raised, but the captain said — based on what he had seen and heard recorded by an officer’s body-worn camera — one weapon that was examined was determined to be a BB gun or pellet rifle. Police said they were told on the 19th that the item had been moved out of the house and into a car.
"They weren't even sure if there were any weapons in the house, and I don't know where the weapon came from that was used in the murder," Dobbs said.
Dobbs also said that family members told police they were concerned William Bushey might attack them with a knife, so family removed the kitchen knives and attempted to hide them.
Dobbs asserted the officers made the right decision in response to both calls.
"We ask our officers every day to make very difficult decisions, and even when they make the right decision -- which in this case they did -- tragedies can still happen," Dobbs said. "And don't think for a minute that the officers aren't second-guessing themselves based on the results that happened in this."
Those resources included information on evictions and restraining orders, which at least the latter were not requested, according to Dobbs.
Dobbs said a psychiatric emergency response team (PERT) was on-scene for the first call, on the 16th, when officers spent about an hour trying to de-escalate the situation; only officers were present during the radio call three days later.
"The police officers on the 19th talked to Mr. Bushey for quite a while, and he exhibited no signs of being in mental distress or being mentally ill," Dobbs said.
What is known for sure is that William Bushey was arrested Wednesday, a shotgun was found at the scene and two people had been shot to death.
William Bushey is currently being held without bail and is due to be arraigned downtown Friday afternoon in Superior Court on double murder charges and an attempted murder charge.
San Diego police said the deceased were a woman in her 60s and a man in his 30s. Their connection to the suspect has not yet been disclosed.
