The officer who shot and killed a man in Hillcrest on the first night of the new year had been involved in two previous fatal shootings in less than three years.

San Diego Police Officer Richard Butera, a 13-year veteran of the force, fired a single round to kill 30-year-old Joshua Adam Sisson on Lewis Street near Fifth Avenue.

He had fatally shot two other men in the line of duty since June 2013. The three shootings in about 30 months are an unusually high number for a single officer, especially in such a short span of time, experts said.

Many police officers go through an entire career without firing their weapon in the line of duty, experts on policing and the use of force said.

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The two previous shootings — in June 2013 and December 2014 — were each ruled justified by San Diego District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis. The shooting of Sisson is still under investigation, with a report expected to be forwarded to prosecutors soon.

Individually, the shootings didn’t attract much notice, and no one sued on behalf of the deceased.

But a pattern of three such encounters by one officer troubles some affected by those prior incidents, and focuses attention on one aspect of police shootings that has received little attention.

The Hillcrest shooting occurred after police were called around 10:30 p.m. with a report that a man held a knife to his boyfriend’s throat and fled.

When Butera encountered Sisson a short distance away, police said he ordered him to stop. Instead Sisson turned and pointed a large knife at Butera. He then started to “aggressively advance” toward the officer.

Butera fired once, striking Sisson in the chest. Sisson died later at a hospital.

After Sisson’s death, family members of the people killed in the the two previous shootings independently contacted The San Diego Union-Tribune to raise questions they say still linger.

“It obviously wasn’t right,” said the sister of 21-year-old Giacomo Cargnoni, who was killed in June 2013. She did not want to be identified to shield her family’s privacy. “It’s not up to this police officer to be taking people’s lives if he’s not in danger. And if he really was in danger, I’m pretty sure there would’ve been more than two shots.”

The investigation into the Sisson shooting will not take into account the two previous incidents, said San Diego Capt. David Nisleit.

“We do these based on what exactly happened at the scene,” he said. “We have to by law, and what is due process for the officer, look at it singly.”

That approach falls short, said Roger Clark, a former Los Angeles County sheriff’s lieutenant who is now an expert on use of force issues by police officers.

“It’s extremely rare for a police officer to shoot at another human being during his career,” Clark said.

An officer involved in several shootings should be examined more closely, he said.

“They should ask what’s going on here?” he said. “What’s happened where you shot three people in less than three years?”

It’s difficult to determine how many police and law enforcement workers are involved in multiple shootings. It’s not a statistic that is tracked at all, said Jeffrey Noble, former deputy police chief in Irvine who is now a consultant and expert on policing issues. At a time of heightened scrutiny over police shootings in San Diego and nationally, Noble said it’s an issue that has been overlooked.

“I’m just not aware of anyone who tracks that information,” he said. “And I think it’s a black mark that we don’t know.”

Noble said that while rare, multiple shootings don’t imply wrongdoing. The circumstances of each shooting are different and unique.

“It’s unusual, yes,” he said. “It’s outside the norm. That doesn’t mean it’s wrong. Simply the fact you’re involved in multiple shootings alone doesn’t mean the officer acted inappropriately, or the department somehow failed the officer.”

Authorities are aware of Butera’s previous incidents, Nisleit said.

“The DA knows he’s been involved in previous shootings,” he said. “And we’re very aware this officer has been involved in other shootings. With that said, this officer also has been cleared in those other shootings.”

In addition to the criminal inquiry, shootings also go through a review by the Internal Affairs unit in the department, as well as a shooting review board, said police spokesman Lt. Scott Wahl. Any deficiencies in training, if found during those reviews, would be addressed, he said.

The police department said Butera would not comment for this story.

The two previous shootings in 2013 and 2014 received some coverage in the media at the time. In each case prosecutors ruled the shootings justified about 10 months after the events in formal letters, which give the most extensive accounts of the shootings publicly available.

First shooting

Cargnoni, 21, was shot the afternoon of June 1, 2013. According to the review by the District Attorney’s Office, he had pointed a gun at another man’s head during an argument in Ocean Beach, and then drove off. Officers soon spotted his car and pulled him over on Sea World Drive as several backup units arrived.

One of the officers told Cargnoni, who was shirtless, to throw his car keys out and walk backward toward them. He initially did what he was told, but then he dropped his pants, and pointed his fingers toward officers as if he was holding a gun.

He pulled his pants up and ran back to his car. He leaned into the driver’s side, then emerged and took a two-handed shooting stance again. He was acting erratically, putting his hands in a shooting position several times and pointing at the police. Eventually he pulled an object with a black handle from the passenger’s side of his car, according to the report.

When he took the shooting position again, this time with the object in his hand, Butera shot him with a shotgun. The officer said he believed the man had a gun, and was going to shoot.

Cargnoni dropped the object, which turned out to be a knife, and rolled away from it several times. He then got up and took several steps toward officers. Butera saw Cargnoni bend forward, and said he thought he was going for the dropped object, which Butera thought was a gun. He shot Cargnoni a second time.

The report said Butera was about 40 feet away when he took the second shot.

The shooting was captured in a grainy, cell phone video taken by one witness, Mike O’Malley. The video was reviewed by Union-Tribune reporters this week, and shows Cargnoni upright, and much closer than 40 feet, when he was shot for a second time.

In an interview O’Malley said when he first saw Cargnoni emerge from behind his car he was “absolutely behaving erratically.” Officers were in the road, their guns drawn and trained on a car in front of them. Even though his windows were up, O’Malley could hear them barking orders.

He watched as Cargnoni adopted a shooting stance and point something at officers.

“I knew at that point that I was about to see someone get shot,” he said.

Seconds later he heard a gun blast. Cargnoni fell to the ground, but eventually got up on one knee. Then he stood and staggered towards Butera, his hands at his sides. A second shot was fired.

The video shows Cargnoni rolling down a slight embankment after the first shot, then rising to a knee. He takes five steps, staggering forward. Butera took a couple steps back before firing the second shot, the video shows.

The entire incident takes 14 seconds from first shot to the second, fatal shot.

“I have always wondered if that second shot was necessary,” O’Malley said. “It just seemed like they would have had the time to realize that what he had in his hands wasn't a gun or that he was wounded from that last shot. They have this utility belt with all these tools at their disposal, so why not switch from shotgun to Taser?”

An autopsy later revealed Cargnoni had traces of cocaine and marijuana in his system. Police also found a loaded 9mm gun in the trunk of the car. The object in his hand — which police believed was a gun — was a seven-inch-long folding knife with a three-inch long blade.

Prosecutors concluded the officer “fired in lawful defense of other officers.” They said Butera believed Cargnoni had a gun, dropped it after the first shot, and was going to retrieve it when he was shot the second time.

Second shooting

About seven months later, Butera fatally shot Aaron Lee Devenere, 27.

Devenere was the passenger in a pickup driven by his girlfriend that was stopped for a traffic violation just before 7 a.m. on Jan. 26, 2014. It was three days after he had been released from jail and a day after he was supposed to have started a residential drug treatment program.

Devenere got out of the truck and faced off with the officer, who ordered him back inside. Devenere jumped back in as the truck sped off, according to a synopsis in the District Attorney’s shooting report.

A 25-mile-long pursuit into Escondido followed. Butera, who is a member of San Diego’s SWAT team and has sniper training, volunteered to respond to the pursuit along with other officers.

During the pursuit, Devenere called 911. He said he had kidnapped his girlfriend and threatened to hurt her if officers stopped the truck. He also said he had a handgun and explosives. Officers used spike strips to eventually stop the vehicle.

A police lieutenant told Butera to get set up with his rifle, and if he got a shot on Devenere, to take it, according to the report. Butera said the driver was screaming and appeared to be trying to escape as Devenere continued ignoring officer commands, according to a synopsis of his official statement included in the report.

“At this point I believe that he’s going to kill this woman right now,” Butera said in the report. “His threats he made with explosives, the gun… If I don’t act now, he’s going to kill her.”

The officer fired one round, killing Devenere.

According to the report, the driver — identified as “Lauren L.” — told investigators that moments before the shooting Devenere apologized for what he put her through and told her he was going to get out and give up. Then she heard the gunshot.

No guns or explosives were found in the truck, and Devenere was not armed.

Kym Melton, Deveneres’s sister, told the Union-Tribune she believes her brother was trying to surrender when he was shot.

“There were no explosives, no guns, and the hostage that he supposedly had wasn’t really a hostage,” she said, based on Lauren’s version of events. “They weren’t doing right by the law, but it didn’t warrant my brother getting shot.”