A SWAT officer shot and killed Jose Astorga Jr., 37, during a struggle to pull a child hostage from a window of the Modesto house.
Author: Joseph Daniels
Published: 10:36 PM PDT June 13, 2019
Updated: 4:18 AM PDT June 14, 2019
STANISLAUS COUNTY, Calif. ? A Modesto man armed with a shotgun was killed June 6 by SWAT officers after he allegedly broke into a home and held three children hostage, Stanislaus County Sheriff's Department officials said.
According to the sheriff's department, Jose Astorga Jr., 37, broke into a home last week in the 200 block of Olivero Road in Modesto. Sheriff's officials said three juveniles were inside the home at the time of the break in.
One child escaped and managed to ask a neighbor to call 911, and another juvenile escaped while deputies were arriving on the scene. The children told sheriff's investigators that they did not know Astorga, according to a statement.
The sheriff's department activated its SWAT and hostage negotiation teams, both of which attempted to contact Astorga from outside of the home. After the deputies did not hear from Astorga, they said they approached an open window and placed a wired phone in the house.
Three hours after deputies arrived, officials said they made contact with Astorga and one of the hostages through a the window. Astorga covered his and the child's head with an orange hooded jacket to conceal them from the sheriff's deputies,
The child allegedly tried to pull away from Astorga and push himself out of the window, but Astorga began pulling the juvenile back into the home. At the same time, officials said SWAT officers grabbed onto the juvenile to keep him from being pulled back into the home.
Deputy Fernando Gomez, who was positioned in an elevated turret of an armored rescue vehicle, shot Astorga as SWAT attempted to rescue the child, according to the sheriff's department. The boy was pulled from the window and taken to medical personnel waiting at the scene.
The SWAT team entered the home and found the suspect in the same room as the window where he was shot and later pronounced dead.
The Stanislaus County Sheriff's Department asks anyone with information about this incident to call Det. Cory Brown at (209)567-4485.
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