Deputies Cleared in ’98 Shooting Death

Two sheriff’s deputies were justified in the fatal shooting last year of a 29-year-old Camarillo man, the Ventura County district attorney’s office has concluded.

Han Huynh was shot 11 times in the chest and abdomen the night of Sept. 22 after he was stopped by deputies while walking through a Thousand Oaks neighborhood, authorities said.

The actions of Deputies Mark Correia and Michael Rowland, who declined to talk to county investigators, were ruled to be self-defense, based on witness testimony.

Huynh was shot after he failed to respond to pepper spray and then brandished a six-inch kitchen knife and lunged at Rowland, who was standing 10 to 15 feet away, prosecutors said.

“We don’t specifically know the mental state of the deputies, but from the physical evidence, it’s reasonable to infer that the deputies honestly believed that Rowland was in eminent peril of death or great bodily injury,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. Don Glynn.

Huynh, who had been diagnosed with schizophrenia, had left home two days before the shooting, his family said. He had wandered away before, and authorities had always picked him up and driven him home, family members said.

“I have a feeling the police came to the scene and just overreacted,” Huynh’s sister, Pam Hai, said in September after the shooting. “If the police just tried to talk to him, there wouldn’t have been a problem.”

Hai, who at the time was living with her husband, Huynh and her mother in Camarillo, said her brother always carried a small knife, which he used to slice apples and oranges.