LIVE OAK >> The frantic 15-year-old stabbing suspect, who gripped a 4-inch pocket knife while under the influence of LSD, was fighting off a K-9 officer and nonlethal rounds when a deputy fired an AR-15, a rifle, at Luke Smith’s chest Saturday morning in Corralitos.

Luke died about 3:15 a.m. at the 300 block of Pioneer Road, about a quarter-mile from his part-time home at the end of Amesti Road where authorities said he stabbed his father and uncle multiple times and fled, according to Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office.

“Luke Smith was a great kid,” Sheriff Jim Hart said during the second press conference in two days in response to the shooting. Smith attended Aptos High School. “He was well-liked by everyone and his actions Saturday morning were out of character for him.”

Luke and a friend bought and used LSD on Friday night, Hart said.

“There’s no motive for the attacks at this time,” Hart said. “And we believe that Luke was acting out due to the adverse reaction to the LSD.”

What unfolded early Saturday morning started just before 3 a.m. when Luke’s father and uncle called 911 to report that Luke had stabbed them.

When law enforcement arrived, Luke was near the scene, talking to officers, and at some point climbed on top of a fire truck and banged on the windows. He fled shortly thereafter with 11 officers from three agencies giving chase.

They followed Smith along Pioneer Road about 13 minutes. At one point, an officer’s body camera footage shows him running into the yard of a home on Pioneer Road. Officers tell Luke repeatedly to drop the knife. They also ask Luke what he needs.

At a press conference Monday, Hart released multiple pieces of body camera footage from the shooting, saying it was in the interest of transparency though he noted that Smith’s family was not comfortable with the footage being released.

The footage shows 13 minutes of negotiation with Smith as well as the use of Tasers, weighted foam rounds and a K-9. At least one of the three Taser shots struck Luke, but did not stop him. One of the foam rounds hit Luke in the hand holding the knife but failed to cause him to drop the weapon. And Capitola officer Pedro Zamora deployed his K-9 partner Kato twice. Despite Kato’s grip on Luke’s arm, he appeared as though he felt no pain.

None of their nonlethal efforts worked, Hart said, causing nine-year veteran officer Chris Vigil to fire the fatal round from an AR-15, which is an assault rifle. The bullet hit Luke in the chest.

“The boy raised the knife again before he was shot in the chest,” Hart said.

Vigil fired the fatal round at Luke, who was spinning as he was being attacked by the K-9 and at some point fell to the ground either as he was shot or before, the video shows. Hart said hitting Luke in the chest was the only option.

Luke died at the scene.

“What I see in that video is the dog goes for the right hand, which is the knife hand and then he shakes off the dog of his right hand and the dog re-engages with the left hand,” Hart said. “He brings the left hand and makes a stabbing motion toward the dog and then lunges toward the dog handler.”

Hart said, “It’s an angle that’s really hard to see that. If you break it down, I think you’ll see that.”

“The thing that’s important to know is what’s on that video and what I’ve just described is all consistent with the officers’ statements that were all taken independently,” Hart said.

Hart said Vigil has been with the Sheriff’s Office for nine years and has at least 100 hours of conflict resolution training. He is on administrative leave. The other four deputies and a sergeant from the Sheriff’s Office are on their regularly scheduled days off. Three Watsonville police officers and two Capitola officers also responded.

Of the fatal shooting, Hart said Vigil “did not do anything wrong.”

Hart said Saturday night that deputies arrested four people believed to have sold the drugs to Luke and one of his friends. They are Taylor Filson, 28, a leasing consultant from Santa Cruz; Bradley Hodge, 24, a business owner from Santa Cruz; Thomas Negron, 20, who lists no occupation but is from Santa Cruz, and Nathaniel Trecaso, 28.

Filson, Hodge and Negron were arrested on Pacific Avenue after 11 p.m. Saturday on suspicion of manufacturing a controlled substance, a felony.

All three remained at Santa Cruz County Jail on Monday night. Filson also is accused of transporting and selling narcotics or controlled substances, also felonies. She is being held in lieu of $50,000 bail. Hodge is in custody in lieu of $60,000 bail. Negron remained at jail in lieu of $50,000 bail. There were no online jail records for Trecaso.

The family

Friends have launched a GoFundMe campaign for Luke’s family, which includes a sister, who is a senior at Aptos High, his mother, a flight attendant, and his father, a construction worker. The GoFundMe campaign donations will be given to his mother, a Vietnamese immigrant who came to the United States as a teenager. The fund has raised nearly $5,000.

Luke’s father and uncle work at Knox Roofing. A woman who answered the phone at the roofing business on Monday said the stabbings have left workers reeling from the news.

“We’ve all been praying,” she said. “We’ve all been crying. It’s been horrible. We even had a few workers who didn’t come in today.”

An Aptos woman, who declined to be named but said she and her sons and husband considered Luke to be a part of their family, said Monday, “The family is just torn up and it’s just so sad.

“He was genuinely a great kid, brilliant, with an encyclopedic memory,” she said.

“The story about him needs to be clear. This is a great kid with huge potential who will never see it … and that’s not all right.”

She said Luke chose to live with his father even though he’d told his friends that there was abuse in the household. She wondered if the stabbing resulted from self-defense and said she was upset about how Luke was being portrayed.

“What tore me up is that he’s being written about like he’s a perpetrator. He’s not an aggressor. He’s a gentle, kind soul.”

Joar Opheim, founder and CEO of Nordic Naturals in Watsonville and whose children were friends of Luke, told the Sentinel in an email that “Luke was brilliant, a straight A student while taking several college classes …”

Opheim wrote, “Luke was a highly talented boy, who was taking care of himself as best as he could, who was given acid this particular night, and then flipped …”

Opheim, who said 15 of Luke’s friends gathered at his house Saturday and Sunday, said, “We can never get Luke back.”

Luke’s sister posted this on her Facebook page about the drug her brother took: “There is a bad batch of LSD circulating throughout the area … On Saturday morning at 3AM, this batch of LSD made my brother extremely violent and ended with the police shooting him. Nothing could stop him from what he was doing, because he wasn’t himself; this drug brought out some form of evil in him.

“I have seen my brother on almost every drug he has done, and not once was there a hint of violence or aggression in his character. Luke Smith was, and still is, the funniest, happiest, most loved kid in the county. He brought a smile to everyone’s face and emitted nothing but good vibes. He could befriend anyone, which he often did, and would never dream of hurting anyone the way he did the night that this LSD, or whatever it was, took over him. There are hundreds of close friends and strangers who could testify to the nature of this remarkable young man. Intelligent, talented, passionate.”

The Aptos mom said she knew both Luke’s mother and father.

Luke split his time with his mother, who lives in Aptos, and his sister, staying with his sister when his mother was out of town working, and living with his father in Corralitos.

The Aptos mother said while she had not witnessed Luke’s drug problem, she knew he had been in rehab.

Yet she said, the kind of behavior that has been reported is far from what she witnessed when Luke spent time with her family, eating dinner with them, occasionally staying overnight and getting rides to school. He even went on family vacations with them.

She struggles to explain the situation to her children and their friends. After the incident, 15 of Luke’s friends gathered to try to understand what happened. They even tried to attend the Saturday press conference to learn more details.

Her biggest question lies in what happened in the early morning hours Saturday that led law enforcement to what they called a “tragic” situation that led to Luke’s death.

“What was their rush? Why were they in such a hurry at 3 in the morning. They didn’t have time to talk him down?” she asked. “He must have been terrified, chasing him with dogs, possibly a victim of abuse. Who isn’t going to run from police officers with guns?

While she struggles to help her sons and Luke’s friends cope with the situation, the Aptos mother and Opheim said they want to organize to stop this from happening again.

Opheim wrote, “There needs to be a change! When it is OK to shoot a boy with no gun and police officers and police dogs all over the place? This was not the time.

“We will do all we can to get justice.”

School support

Aptos High put out an email and phone message to the families, offering grief support and counselors.

In the email, Principal Margaret Pughe said, “On behalf of the Aptos High School staff and our PVUSD family, it is with a heavy heart that I express our sincere condolences for the loss of valued Mariner, Luke Smith. Luke was a vibrant and beloved member of our Mariner family.

“Aptos High is working in conjunction with our site and District staff, Pajaro Valley Prevention and Student Assistance, as well as Santa Cruz County crisis response teams to provide crisis response services and support at Aptos High for students and staff. We have significant counseling resources available this week and into the coming weeks for staff and students. Students can request assistance by letting any staff member know they need some help. You may request services for your child by contacting an administrator, your student’s guidance counselor, or any teacher. You may also call the school directly (831-728-7832) and we will get you in touch with the resource you need.

“Please keep Luke’s family in your thoughts, and honor them by keeping conversations and social media focused on supporting them. Please work with your students to remind them of the following:

“• Stick to the facts and do not assume you know what happened.

“• Do not jump to conclusions.

“• All people grieve differently. No type of grief processing is better or worse than another.

“Even for students and staff who did not personally know Luke, it is OK for them to feel sad and express the tragedy of the loss of a young life and the tragedy of loss for his sister and family.

“We are a Mariner family. We must look out for and support one another. Please tell a staff member if you or a friend are in need of support.”

Saturday’s shooting is the second deadly shooting by law enforcement in 34 days in Santa Cruz County.

Sean Arlt, 32, was shot and killed by Santa Cruz police in the 200 block of Chase Street on Oct. 16 after police said he threatened them with a metal bow rake. Saturday’s shooting is the second use of lethal force on a teenager in Santa Cruz County in less than two years. Cyrus Hurtado, 17, of Boulder Creek was shot in his home July 9, 2015 by sheriff’s deputies who said he pointed a loaded rifle at them. Deputies in that case were cleared of any wrongdoing.

The shooting marks the sixth homicide in the county this year. Five have occurred in Santa Cruz. One in the unincorporated area of the county.

SANTA CRUZ COUNTY HOMICIDES 2016

Jan. 5: Howard Atkinson shot to death his sister-in-law, 22-year-old Cherish Villapia of Iowa, in his apartment on the 100 block of Chestnut Street in Santa Cruz, police said. Atkinson, a 35-year-old who recently moved to Santa Cruz from Texas, then fatally shot himself. Police believe it was a murder-suicide, yet no motive has been established.

Aug. 23: Joseph Shuemaker, 24, is shot and killed on the west levee of the San Lorenzo River by an associate during an argument. Nino Ruiz, 27, and Jenessa Kic, 31 were arrested in connection with the shooting four hours later as they emerged from a house on the 300 Block of Leibrandt Avenue. Cristobal Natividad, 41, also was arrested Sept. 20 and charged as an accessory in the homicide.

Sept. 22: Ernesto Leiva, a 23-year-old Santa Cruz man shot in the upper torso on Broadway and Pennsylvania in Santa Cruz.

Sept. 26: Santa Cruz police discover the body of Shannon Magner, 66, of Aptos, in an apartment on the 800 block of Front Street. An autopsy reveals stab wounds to the back of her neck. A possible suspect is identified but remains on the loose.

Oct. 16: A Santa Cruz police officer shoots and kills 32-year-old Sean Arlt in the 200 block of Chace Street after he threatens them with a metal bow rake.

Nov. 19: Santa Cruz County sheriff’s deputies shoot and kill Luke Smith, 15, after two others were stabbed at a house on the 800 block of Amesti Road outside Watsonville. Luke was found on the 300 block of Pioneer Road. Luke lived at the house on Amesti Road with his father and uncle, both of whom were stabbed just before 3 a.m. Saturday.