The San Diego County Sheriff’s Office has released body-worn video from a shooting involving a deputy in Lakeside earlier this month.

Deputy Chris Bearss fired harmlessly on Eric Mitchell Ralls, 30, of Poway, on Dec. 10 after the latter claimed to have a gun and then made a threatening move toward him, authorities said.

In the video and accompanying briefing released Wednesday, the sheriff’s office said the events began shortly before 10:30 a.m. that day, when the Lakeside Fire Department received a report of a man possibly experiencing a drug overdose in the 9200 block of Briette Place.

Sheriff’s deputies also responded to the emergency call at the request of firefighters, and arrived to find Ralls no longer there. They began searching the neighborhood, and found him on an embankment in the neighborhood near Lake Jennings.

Bearss approaches Ralls from the other side of a chain-link fence, and the suspect allegedly tells him he is armed with a gun, then “reaches behind his back towards his waistband as if he is reaching for the gun eventually getting into a shooting stance with his hands,” sheriff’s officials said. “Deputy Bearss fires his weapon at the man, but misses. The man then runs away. Deputy Bearss chases after him.”

Ralls was eventually arrested by multiple deputies a short distance away.

Ralls, who allegedly went on to assault a medic while en route to Sharp Grossmont Hospital in La Mesa for a post-arrest evaluation, was booked into San Diego Central Jail on suspicion of resisting arrest and battering an emergency worker.

No weapon was located at the scene, authorities said.

Bearss has been with the county law enforcement agency for about two years.

The San Diego Police Department is investigating the shooting per a Memorandum of Agreement signed in 2022 to avoid appearances of a conflict of interest in law enforcement shootings.

 The San Diego County Sheriff’s Office has released body-worn video from a shooting involving a deputy in Lakeside earlier this month.

Deputy Chris Bearss fired harmlessly on Eric Mitchell Ralls, 30, of Poway, on Dec. 10 after the latter claimed to have a gun and then made a threatening move toward him, authorities said.

In the video and accompanying briefing released Wednesday, the sheriff’s office said the events began shortly before 10:30 a.m. that day, when the Lakeside Fire Department received a report of a man possibly experiencing a drug overdose in the 9200 block of Briette Place.

Sheriff’s deputies also responded to the emergency call at the request of firefighters and arrived to find Ralls no longer there. They began searching the neighborhood and found him on an embankment in the neighborhood near Lake Jennings.

Bearss approaches Ralls from the other side of a chain-link fence, and the suspect allegedly tells him he is armed with a gun, then “reaches behind his back towards his waistband as if he is reaching for the gun eventually getting into a shooting stance with his hands,” sheriff’s officials said. “Deputy Bearss fires his weapon at the man, but misses. The man then runs away. Deputy Bearss chases after him.”

Ralls was eventually arrested by multiple deputies a short distance away.

Ralls, who allegedly went on to assault a medic while en route to Sharp Grossmont Hospital in La Mesa for a post-arrest evaluation, was booked into San Diego Central Jail on suspicion of resisting arrest and battering an emergency worker.

No weapon was located at the scene, authorities said.

Bearss has been with the county law enforcement agency for about two years.

The San Diego Police Department is investigating the shooting per a Memorandum of Agreement signed in 2022 to avoid appearances of a conflict of interest in law enforcement shootings.

— City News Service