Simi Valley Police release footage of second officer-involved shooting

Simi Valley police have released officer-worn camera footage of a July 21 pursuit and officer-involved shooting that left a 37-year-old Simi Valley man dead, giving residents their most detailed public look yet at a case that remains under investigation by the California Department of Justice.

The Simi Valley Acorn, which first reported the footage release, identified the man killed as Nicholas Thompson, 37, citing the Ventura County Medical Examiner's Office. The Medical Examiner's Office determined Thompson's cause of death was homicide resulting from multiple gunshot wounds — a classification that describes the manner of death and does not by itself indicate criminal wrongdoing.

The release gives Simi Valley residents a chance to review the events themselves, though the department cautioned that the video contains graphic images and language.

What the footage shows

According to the Acorn's account, the incident began around 8:15 a.m. on July 21 with a domestic violence call at a home in the 2500 block of Dusan Street. The released video includes the 911 call placed that morning by the man's mother, as well as footage from a motorcycle officer's body-worn camera.

In one portion of the video, an officer can be heard explaining to family members that law enforcement was using license plate reader technology to locate the man's white pickup truck. The officer says the truck had been detected "seven minutes ago" in the Los Angeles area, off Victory Boulevard — a detail that illustrates how widely the search ranged before the encounter came back to Simi Valley.

Police later spotted the truck near the Simi Valley Town Center and attempted a traffic stop. The stop became a pursuit that ran along the 118 Freeway and ended back near the Dusan Street residence where the day's events began.

According to police, the suspect drove toward an officer and struck a police motorcycle. Multiple officers then opened fire. Thompson died at the scene. No officers were injured. The video released by the department shows the truck and damage to the police motorcycle after the collision.

Five officers were identified as involved in the shooting: Sgt. Gene Colato, Senior Officer Bryan Sarfaty, Officer Brett Suliga, Officer Evan Hutchins and Officer Edward Brockschmidt.

A second shooting in a single month

The July 21 incident was the second officer-involved shooting involving Simi Valley police in July, an unusual concentration for a department that goes years between such incidents.

The first occurred July 2, when Officer Carly Grice shot a 46-year-old Simi Valley man, identified as Luis Ramirez-Macias, at Los Robles Regional Medical Center in Thousand Oaks. Ramirez-Macias was receiving treatment there for self-inflicted injuries stemming from an earlier domestic violence incident in Simi Valley, and had been arrested earlier that day on suspicion of attempting to murder his wife, the Acorn reported.

According to police, Grice was guarding Ramirez-Macias when he appeared to need immediate medical attention. Hospital staff found he had obtained a glass medication vial, broken it and fashioned it into an improvised edged weapon. Police said Ramirez-Macias used the broken glass to injure himself before attacking Grice, who fired one round and struck him. He survived, and later pleaded not guilty to attempted murder, inflicting injury on a spouse or cohabitant, and assaulting a peace officer. His bail was denied Aug. 18, and he is scheduled to return to court Sept. 22 for an early disposition conference.

Footage of the July 2 shooting was released Aug. 19. Because that shooting occurred in Thousand Oaks, the Ventura County Sheriff's Office is leading that investigation. The July 21 shooting, by contrast, falls under the state DOJ's jurisdiction.

Why the videos are public

The releases are not discretionary. California Assembly Bill 748, passed in 2018, requires law enforcement agencies to release video and audio recordings of critical incidents — including officer-involved shootings — within 45 days, subject to statutory exceptions and permitted redactions. Both the July 2 and July 21 videos were posted to the Simi Valley Police Department's YouTube page, consistent with that law.

For residents, the footage offers a raw, unfiltered record of two chaotic encounters: one a freeway pursuit that circled back to the street where it started, the other a hospital room confrontation with an improvised weapon. The department said it released the July 21 footage to provide additional context about what happened before and during the shooting, and urged viewer discretion.

What happens next

The California Department of Justice investigation into the July 21 shooting remains ongoing. Such reviews typically examine whether officers' actions were lawful and within department policy, and can take months before findings are released. Ventura County District Attorney's Office review of officer-involved shootings in the county also generally follows the completion of investigative work.

For the Thompson family and Simi Valley neighbors on and around Dusan Street, the video release marks a milestone in a case that began with a morning 911 call. For the wider community, it is the second time in as many months that residents have been asked to weigh for themselves — through body-camera footage — how their police department handled a split-second, life-or-death decision.

Anyone seeking to view the footage can find the July 21 video on the Simi Valley Police Department's YouTube channel. The Acorn notes it contains graphic content and language.