A year later, Kyle Beckman still has many questions after shooting

Kyle Beckman is frustrated. It has been a year since the Lodi man was arrested in his own driveway as his wife and children watched.

He’s still not happy with the way San Joaquin County Sheriff’s deputies handled the subsequent seizure of his guns, most of which were safely locked away when he opened fire on a vehicle that he felt had almost run him over.

What really upsets him is that, as Beckman was taken away in handcuffs and his family was left defenseless, the driver of that car was turned loose to walk away.

Only later would Beckman learn that the man had spent 10 years in prison for manslaughter and assault.

“I’d just like people in this county to not have to go through what I went through,” he said, sitting in his country home recently, where he had lowered his U.S. flag to half-staff in honor of four Oakland police officers who were killed.

The sheriff’s office declined to comment on Beckman’s complaints.

A car without lights, and gunfire

Beckman’s ordeal began on March 16, 2008, shortly after 10:30 p.m.

Beckman and his wife, Donna, were watching TV in the living room with their two college-aged daughters, who had come home for the St. Patrick’s Day weekend. Their 15-year-old son was asleep.

Their three dogs started barking their “people bark,” meaning that someone was outside, Beckman said. Living in the country, off East Highway 12, which is not connected to West Highway 12, Beckman is used to redirecting lost drivers.

That night, though, he went to the window and saw a car pulling in with no headlights on.

He spent 22 years in law enforcement before retiring, though he still works in investigations, so Beckman’s years of training have stuck with him. The car continued down the driveway, with its lights still off, and he thought something wasn’t right.

Beckman got his Glock 10 handgun and a large flashlight.

He told the women to dial 9-1-1 and headed outside.

His lawman’s instinct told him to go toward the trouble, especially since the driver was heading to the back of the property, where his elderly mother lives.

The car turned around, then backed into a parking space outside his mother’s house. The headlights flashed on and off. Beckman directed his flashlight’s beam at the car and yelled at the driver, asking what he was doing.

The driver didn’t acknowledge him, but instead drove down a side driveway toward the main road. Beckman walked parallel down the main driveway and reached the entrance at the same time as the car.

“I’m shining my light as he’s coming around the corner,” Beckman said, demonstrating his actions. “And I swear he looked like he was under the influence of something.”

The car drove toward him, and Beckman made the decision to move out of the way. He said he realized the driver may have tried to run him over, so he opened fire, aiming at the tires to stop it from leaving.

His daughters started screaming when they heard gunfire. They, along with their mother, had been on the phone with dispatchers during the incident, and deputies arrived at the home.

Beckman, meanwhile, had watched as the car, with two blown tires, drove slowly west along Highway 12. He passed that information to his family to give to dispatchers, then watched in frustration as the flashing lights of patrol cars passed the car to get to his home.

Other deputies did catch up with the car, which by then contained both the male driver as well as a female passenger who was not in the car when Beckman opened fire.

The driver told deputies he was on his way to his girlfriend’s house and got lost, that he was on the phone with her and thought rocks were hitting his car, according to a search warrant affidavit. The girlfriend, on the other end of the phone, recognized the sounds as gunfire.

Between the time of the shooting and when deputies found him, the driver apparently picked up his girlfriend, who gave an address on the other side of the road.

The driver is allowed to leave

The driver, Rafael Vega, was allowed to leave the scene.

Only much later did Beckman learn that Vega had been released from state prison just two months earlier.

Vega was convicted of voluntary manslaughter in a 1998 homicide and sentenced to six years, according to court records. He then was convicted of assault while in prison and sentenced to another four years, according to California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation records.

To this day, Beckman doesn’t know if Vega was checked for alcohol or drugs, so he doesn’t know if his cop’s instinct was correct.

Five months after the incident at Beckman’s house, Stockton police arrested Vega in connection with a gang-related shooting. Now 28, Vega is currently back in prison after pleading no contest to being a felon in possession of a firearm.

At the scene that night, Beckman cooperated and gave deputies the gun he used.

Beckman says that a sergeant at the scene told him he was not going to be arrested. The sergeant then walked away to take a phone call. When he returned, he told Beckman he was being arrested for assault with a firearm.

Beckman was handcuffed and placed in the back of a patrol car.

Deputies asked if he had any other guns in his house. He told them yes, that the firearms were locked in gun safes. When deputies wanted to take them for safekeeping, Beckman said “no.”

As deputies wrote a search warrant, Beckman was driven half an hour away to the county jail in French Camp. There he was booked and strip searched — something he said was very humiliating.

He remained there until 36 hours had passed, when prosecutors decided not to file charges.

Deputies seize the guns

Meanwhile, deputies still wanted the rest of the guns in Beckman’s house.

They checked a box on the warrant form saying there was probable cause to seize items that may have been “used as the means of committing a felony,” though Beckman had given them the gun he used.

The warrant also mentioned that the guns would be kept for safekeeping, which Beckman argues is not a valid reason under California’s Penal Code.

Beckman had plenty of experience with search warrants during his years with the Bakersfield Police Department and then the Kern County District Attorney’s Office. He spent a year on an FBI task force, and still has a framed letter signed personally by then-Director Louis J. Freeh, commending Beckman for his involvement, especially on a raid with four arrests and 17 search warrants.

Deputies woke up Judge Ron Northup, who signed the warrant.

Donna Beckman cooperated and unlocked the safes that held guns that had been in the family for years.

“I can’t tell you how many deputies we had in this house,” she said. “Some were picking (the guns) up and saying, ‘Oooh, look at this one.’”

The deputies finally left, taking the guns with them. The driver had since been turned loose, his car towed away because it had been shot 11 times.

Donna Beckman was alone with no protection for her children and her 79-year-old mother-in-law, who had slept through the entire incident.

“I didn’t know if the guy was going to come back and shoot us all,” his wife, Donna Beckman, said. “I just had to try to be strong for my kids.”

She was already on edge because, exactly two weeks earlier, someone had broken into her vehicle parked on the property.

Aftermath: So ‘mistakes’ are avoided in the future

Beckman eventually got home and went through the required paperwork to get his guns back. It took six months.

He filed a complaint with the Sheriff’s Office and says an assistant sheriff ultimately told him the case would be handled the same way if it happened all over again. Needless to say, the Beckmans weren’t happy with that response.

“The judge believed what was fed to him, which he should be able to do, but he was fed misinformation,” Donna Beckman said.

The Beckmans pointed to a paragraph in the affidavit, in which a detective says Beckman told deputies he’d recently been threatened and thought the driver could be connected to it. Beckman adamantly denies saying that, and says he hadn’t been threatened in years since retiring from his law enforcement job.

Sheriff’s spokesman Deputy Les Garcia declined to comment, noting that Beckman is still in communication with the Sheriff’s Office and has mentioned possible litigation.

He also did not comment on more specific questions, including Beckman’s allegation that an assistant sheriff made veiled threats about his job (Beckman works part-time as an investigator for the Probation Department).

“It’s inappropriate for me to comment on this case, based on the fact that Mr. Beckman is attempting to continue avenues of investigative measures,” Garcia said Tuesday.

Beckman, who has dealt with plenty of lawyers over the years through work and was once involved in a union wage dispute, said he didn’t file a claim (the precursor to a lawsuit) and didn’t want to take legal action.

He’s the type who, when he’s home, wears shorts and a “Life is good” shirt.

Beckman’s biggest concern is that deputies learn from what he believes are mistakes, so it doesn’t happen all over again.

Contact reporter Layla Bohm at layla@lodinews.com.

Reader Feedback

tired wrote on Apr 18, 2009 9:05 PM:

" Typical of the good ol' San Joaquin Sheriff's Department. What a joke of an organization. Somebody needs to hold these idiots accountable! "

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A year later, Kyle Beckman still has many questions after shooting

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