SLO police responded to 10 calls about man who killed detective in shootout, records show
In less than a year, the San Luis Obispo Police Department responded to 10 calls for service related to the mentally ill man who later shot and killed Det. Luca Benedetti, records show.
In one incident in 2020, police responded to perform a welfare check on Edward “Eddie” Giron, who the reporting party told police was “exhibiting signs of mania and paranoia,” according to a San Luis Obispo Police Department incident report.
One of the responding officers was the same person who had been in contact with a close friend of Giron’s who told The Tribune last month that she and others tried in vain to get Giron mental health help and warned police that he owned unregistered firearms before the fatal shooting on May 10.
Records also show that Giron, 35, is suspected of a burglary at a San Luis Obispo gas station just two days before the shooting.
The records, obtained by The Tribune through the Public Records Act, seem to contradict a statement by county Sheriff Ian Parkinson, who said at a news conference May 11 in response to a reporter’s question that there was “no indication of anything in our files of mental illness” related to Giron, nor that he had any registered firearms.
The Sheriff’s Office is investigating the shooting and said that Parkinson was only referring to his office in that statement.
Benedetti was shot and killed by Giron as he and five other officers served a search warrant on Giron’s apartment related to what officials say were several commercial burglaries. San Luis Obispo police Det. Steve Orozco was injured in the shooting.
Records show escalating calls for service, gas station break-in
The Tribune filed records requests with SLOPD and the Sheriff’s Office to understand what law enforcement knew about Giron’s state of mind and whether he might be a threat to himself or others.
The Sheriff’s Office said in response to The Tribune records request that it had no incident or missing persons reports related to Giron but acknowledged a request to check his welfare.
The San Luis Obispo Police Department, however, provided more than a dozen records related to Giron, including a traffic collision and a traffic stop in 2007 and 2010, respectively.
The records show that the department received eight calls for noise, welfare checks and suspicious activity at his apartment between March 2020 and January 2021. The records show an escalation of symptoms of Giron’s mental illness.
Those records do not include email and phone communications between officers and at least one friend of Giron’s, who maintained communication with an officer from July to October, according to records she previously provided.
Records received by the city show that on March 24, 2020, two police officers were called to Giron’s apartment twice within less than two hours for noise complaints. Police issued Giron a citation during the second visit, records show.
A day later, police were again called out to Giron’s apartment for another noise complaint. Another citation was issued.
But the reports from Giron’s neighbors soon became more serious.
On July 11, records show, the same officer who had been in email and phone communication with Giron’s close friend about his mental health responded to his apartment at 3:50 p.m.
The reporting party said that Giron was “exhibiting signs of mania and paranoia and requests welfare check,” the incident report reads. A note that runs off the page of the report appears to say that Giron is “very skeptical” of police.
The report does not say what came of that call.
The morning of Oct. 22, SLOPD received a missing-person report for Giron, with the reporting party saying that they were concerned for his welfare.
That afternoon, police received another call for service to Giron’s apartment, when a caller reported they were “concerned about a tenant and something (was) happening in the unit,” the report says.
On Nov. 17, another welfare check was requested at Giron’s apartment after a caller reported they had “not seen neighbor’s vehicle in two months. Does not know neighbor’s name but requests welfare check.”
Police again responded to the apartment on Jan. 8, when a neighbor reported a man on a balcony “screaming and crying” with music blasting, confirming what that neighbor previously told The Tribune.
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Incident at Trader Joe’s
The records also include two other calls for service to locations other than Giron’s apartment.
The day after the balcony incident, Giron was arrested by SLO police after an incident at Trader Joe’s. According to the report, two officers responded to the store at about 10:50 a.m. for a suspicious activity call.
The caller reported that a man was “peeling rubber” in the parking lot, nearly colliding with other vehicles, and was yelling outside the store. The man was gone by the time officers arrived.
At 1:30 p.m., the caller reported to police that the man, identified in the report as Giron, was back inside the store and the person requested help for trespassing.
The report shows Giron was arrested on suspicion of public intoxication and booked at San Luis Obispo County Jail. The report does not say what happened after Giron was booked.
SLOPD records related to Giron also show that two days before the fatal shooting, on May 8, police responded to the Valero gas station on Higuera Street at 11:40 p.m. after a caller reported the front glass door had been shattered, and cartons of cigarettes had been stolen.
The report does not mention Giron by name, but the city was requested to provide any records related to Giron. A department spokeswoman declined to provide any further information about the incident.
In addition to those records, The Tribune also previously obtained records of an arrest for trespassing in Santa Barbara in July, as well as an October incident in which which Giron swam out to sea in Avila Beach and had to be rescued by Cal Fire.
The city is still compiling records in response to The Tribune’s records request related to Giron.
Sheriff responds to mental illness question
In response to a request for comment for this article, Sheriff’s Office Tony Cipolla clarified that Parkinson was only referring to records in possession of the Sheriff’s Office at the time.
Records provided by the Sheriff’s Office show that the agency received one check-the-welfare report related to Giron, but says it’s prohibited from releasing any information about that incident, including the date.
Cipolla did elaborate, however, that the check-the-welfare call received by the Sheriff’s Office was determined to be outside of their jurisdiction, and that the call “was transferred to the appropriate agency.” No contact was made by sheriff’s deputies related to the call, Cipolla said.
Asked about Parkinson’s statement at the news conference, Cipolla wrote in an email that “the sheriff was asked to participate in the San Luis Obispo Police Department’s press conference less than 24 hours after the shooting.”
“The information available at that time did not show that Giron was taken into custody by the Sheriff’s Office for being a danger to himself or others,” Cipolla wrote. “Sheriff Parkinson’s exact quote at the press conference was ‘there was no indication of anything in our (italics added) files of his mental illness.’ The sheriff was only referencing Sheriff’s Office dispatch records since he does not have access to records from other law enforcement agencies.”
In response to a request for comment for this article, the San Luis Obispo Police Department referred a reporter to a statement the city issued in response to a previous Tribune article.
This story was originally published June 22, 2021 at 8:00 AM.
