Man who shot San Jose cop was a 'nice guy’ who beat his wife

Scott Dunham, 57, suspected in the shooting death of a San Jose police officer on Tuesday. Scott Dunham, 57, suspected in the shooting death of a San Jose police officer on Tuesday. Photo: San Jose Police Department / Courtesy Of San Jose Police Depa Photo: San Jose Police Department / Courtesy Of San Jose Police Depa Image 1 of / 35 Caption Close Man who shot San Jose cop was a 'nice guy’ who beat his wife 1 / 35 Back to Gallery

Neighbors knew Scott Dunham as a quiet, friendly guy. His family knew him as a hardworking gardener who had beaten his wife in 1996 and struggled with mental illness and booze.

The darker side apparently claimed him Tuesday night. That’s when, according to witnesses and relatives, he held a gun on his wife at their San Jose apartment, threatened suicide — and then shot and killed a San Jose police officer who was rushing to help.

Barrage of bullets

Dunham, 57, fired on Officer Michael Johnson from his balcony, and the officers with Johnson responded with a fusillade of bullets. Johnson died where he fell. The apartment lay silent for several hours, and then, when a police robot was able to search the rooms, Dunham was found dead of at least one gunshot.

Two grieving families were left behind to agonize over questions that may never be adequately answered, and San Jose was left with its first police officer fatality in 13 years.

Officer Albert Morales, a San Jose Police Department spokesman, struggled to contain his emotions as he addressed the media early Wednesday.

“The chief is obviously really broken up right now,” Morales said. “He just addressed all the officers that were out here, including those that assisted. Very, very difficult thing to do when you are head of an organization, and you have to tell your officers to continue to do a good job and go out there and protect the citizens of the city.”

Morales said officers were “obviously crying, grieving. They will do so for some quite some time. Our hearts, our prayers go out to the family of Michael, our brother.”

Johnson, a 14-year veteran officer, was 38 and leaves behind a wife, Nicole Johnson.

The shooting happened at 7:08 p.m. Tuesday, about 20 minutes after officers were called to investigate reports that Dunham was intoxicated, had a gun to his head at his apartment at 2664 Senter Road and was threatening to commit suicide.

Police were asked to do a welfare check on Dunham, who reportedly threatened his wife, Altheia Dunham, and said he would kill her if “she didn’t leave,” the police dispatcher told officers responding to the call. The woman left the apartment and called her daughter, who called police.

Officers were taking up positions around the apartment when the gunfire erupted.

Shots rang out like explosions throughout the normally quiet apartment complex, sending neighbors scrambling for cover.

'I heard a boom boom’

“I heard a boom boom, and I looked at my grandkids and said that sounded like gunfire,” said Billy Lewis, 61, a neighbor of Dunham’s. “My grandchild said that was a gun. We got on the floor and took cover.”

Once things quieted down, Lewis looked outside and saw two officers with their guns pointed toward Dunham’s unit. Lewis said he took his grandchildren upstairs in his condo and called the police, who told him about the shooting and told him to stay inside.

“It’s just heartbreaking that it was my neighbor and heartbreaking that we lost one of our officers in the line of duty,” he said.

Shortly before 3 a.m., neighbors said they heard what sounded like the police blowing open Dunham’s door and then saw them rolling a robot into his apartment to check the rooms. His body was recovered by police at 3:20 a.m.

Police Chief Larry Esquivel said there had been no additional reports of gunfire after the initial gunbattle between police and Dunham on Tuesday night. It was unclear whether Dunham died of a bullet from his own gun or from the volley fired by the officers.

“It’s a good possibility he was dead the whole time,” Esquivel said. “There was no contact or any dialogue or communication with any of our officers after that.”

Neighbor Cindy Gurtowski, 47, said she never had an inkling of anything troubling Dunham, who, by several accounts, was an affable man. He liked to chat with people in the courtyards, swapping stories about things like a bad back or the weather.

“He was a really nice guy,” Gurtowski said. “Very friendly, always stopped to chat at the mailbox.

A 'good worker’

“We’ve lived here for two years, and we’ve never seen police here before,” she said. “It’s really quiet, with great neighbors.”

Dunham worked as a grounds gardener and construction laborer for the Foothill-De Anza Community College District from 1998 to 2012. Vice Chancellor Kevin McElroy said Dunham left because he retired, but he could not elaborate on any personnel records. Former co-workers, who asked not to be named, said he was a “good worker.”

Santa Clara County court records show that he pleaded no contest in 1996 to two misdemeanor counts of battery for choking and hitting his wife. During the attack, according to the records, he was drunk and fought with his daughter, pulling her hair.

“The argument started because (Dunham) burped in (his wife’s) face and would not clean up some salmon from the couch,” one of the arresting officers wrote.

A woman who said she was Dunham’s niece told KRON-TV on Wednesday that her uncle “was suffering from mental illness.”

“This man, in his right mind, was a good man, supportive of his family,” she told the station. “It’s just too bad that mental illness got the better of him.”

Condolences pouring into the San Jose Police Department from grieving citizens, leaders and law enforcement officers included messages from Gov. Jerry Brown, Attorney General Kamala Harris and Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen. Flags at all county facilities are being flown at half staff for a week.

The last San Jose officer to be killed in the line of duty was Jeffrey Fontana, who was shot and killed October 2001 by a man who was later sentenced to life in prison. Johnson was in the same academy class as Fontana.

Vivian Ho, Kevin Fagan, Henry K. Lee and Hamed Aleaziz are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. E-mail: vho@sfchronicle.com, kfagan@sfchronicle.com, hlee@sfchronicle.com, haleaziz@sfchronicle.com