The gang suppression team officers were cruising the working class San Diego neighborhood of Southcrest on a humid summer night when they saw two men walking down Acacia Grove Way.

The officers decided to talk to the men, and steered into a driveway about 11 p.m. One of the men drifted away quickly. The other one, without warning, shot Officer Wade Irwin in the throat and pumped at least five rounds into Officer Jonathan “J.D.” De Guzman as he sat behind the steering wheel of his patrol car.

In the next seconds, Irwin fired back at the gunman. He turned on his body-worn camera. Barely able to speak, he radioed for help and described the shooter. He didn’t know if his shot had hit its mark.

The barrage of gunfire startled nearby residents. Lucila Hernandez, two doors down, looked out her upstairs bedroom window and saw Irwin lying near the patrol car. The street quickly filled with police cars and officers.


“They yelled, ‘J.D.! Hang on! Hang on!’” Hernandez recalled. “I could see they were very desperate, very emotional.”

The violent encounter exactly one year ago, on July 28, 2016, changed lives forever.

De Guzman, a 16-year veteran, died at the hospital. Police Chief Shelley Zimmerman faced the excruciating task of notifying his wife and two children. Irwin, a 9-year-veteran, spent 25 days in the hospital while his wife took leave from work to stay by his side.

“I remember that night like it was seconds ago,” Zimmerman said this week as the tragic anniversary approached. “It’s still raw.”


That day, Zimmerman attended a Pacific Islander food festival on Shelter Island.

“I was thinking I would go home now and relax.” She changed out of her uniform. Then came the phone call: Two officers had been shot and were headed to the hospital.

Officer Jonathan “J.D.” De Guzman (San Diego Police Department)

She got to Scripps Mercy Hospital in Hillcrest in time to learn that De Guzman, 43, didn’t make it. Doctors said Irwin had a good chance of surviving.


Then she drove to De Guzman’s Chula Vista home. On the way, the chief recalled having phoned Jane De Guzman six years earlier to say her husband had been stabbed in the arm at work — but Zimmerman’s opening words then were, “He’s going to be OK.”

“And all I was thinking was, I couldn’t tell Jane he’s going to be OK, because he wasn’t.”

Officer Wade Irwin (San Diego Police Department)

Zimmerman noted that several San Diego officers had been killed in the line of duty since she joined the department in 1982.


“This was the first one while I was chief. It’s different. It definitely is different,” she said. “It happened on my watch... I know the danger they face every day. I just pray you never get that call. When I got it, my heart sank. That will be the hardest thing I will ever do, making that notification.

“It does change you.”

While the fallen officers were being worked on at the hospital, police swarmed Acacia Grove Way to look for the shooter and his companion. A blood trail into a brushy drainage channel led to Jesse Michael Gomez, unconscious with a chest wound, wearing an empty holster, a gun and magazine lying nearby.

“Police were buzzing around — hundreds of police cars,” said resident Elam Stanton. “Two helicopters, SWAT teams going door-to-door. I could see flashlights in the creek bed, hundreds of flashlights.”


Hernandez said her family and neighbors still talk about that night. “Before, we would hardly see the police. Now we like that they come, and talk to us,” she said.

A small memorial marked the spot along Acacia Grove Way near where San Diego police officers Jonathan De Guzman and Wade Irwin were shot on July 28, 2016. (Lucila Hernandez)

Gomez, 53, a construction worker with felony firearms convictions in 1992 and 2002, has been charged with murder and attempted murder of the officers, and could face the death penalty. His trial has not been scheduled. Police arrested a second possible suspect the day after the shooting, but he has not been charged in the case.

Zimmerman said the community outpouring in support of the officers and their families was overwhelming. Strangers ask her how Irwin was doing, or the De Guzman children.


Irwin returned to light duty last month and full duty back with the gang suppression team two weeks ago.

Jim Cunningham, an attorney with the local Fraternal Order of Police, to which Irwin belongs, said the officer underwent therapy to heal his damaged vocal chords and worked hard to get back in shape.

“His road to recovery he took on as bravely as he took on the suspect who killed his partner and tried to kill him,” Cunningham said.

Irwin, through others in the department, declined to be interviewed for this story.


San Diego Police Officers Association President Brian Marvel said the community and fellow officers raised some $500,000 for the two officers’ families. Many businesses held their own fund-raisers. Officers ran golf and poker tournaments.

Cunningham said his neighbor’s child set up a lemonade stand and presented him with $67 to give to Irwin.

Officers helped with chores at Irwin’s home and provided his wife, Taryn, and their daughter with extra support. Officers accompanied De Guzman’s daughter Amira as she was dropped off for her first day of school after the shooting and when a father-daughter dance came up, three officers went as her escort. De Guzman’s son, Jonathan, received a college scholarship from the San Diego Pan-Pacific Law Enforcement Association.

A post office in Eastlake was named the Jonathan ‘J.D.’ De Guzman Post Office Building in March.


Mayor Kevin Faulconer, looking back on the year, said in a statement “What still strikes me is how the entire San Diego community rallied around the De Guzman family with a huge outpouring of love and support that continues to this day. That says a lot about who J.D. was as a human being but also says a lot about who we are as San Diegans.”

Zimmerman said she felt a change at the Police Department as officers pulled together to help the families. “I think we’re closer. When tragedy strikes, people have a tendency to support each other,” the chief said.

She said she thinks of De Guzman every day and worries about her officers.

”I don’t take any day for granted,” Zimmerman said. “In those quiet moments, you reflect. A family is forever changed. It’s devastating loss to our department. Time heals, but it hasn’t healed yet.”