Vallejo police shot and seriously injured a 24-year-old man during an apparent mental health crisis in East Vallejo Friday, the department’s first shooting since November 2023.
Around 6:25 p.m., an officer radioed “shots fired” from the Blue Rock Village apartment complex in the 2000 block of Ascot Parkway. Witnesses identified the shooting victim as 24-year-old Alexander Schumann.
The Vallejo Police Department alleged in a Saturday press release that Schumann approached officers during a vandalism call and pointed a replica gun at them. Officers fired on Schumann, striking him at least once before immediately administering first aid, Vallejo police spokesperson Sgt. Rashad Hollis told Open Vallejo Saturday.
Schumann remains hospitalized in stable condition with injuries that are not life threatening, Hollis said. No officers were injured in the shooting, according to dispatch audio.
James Schumann told Open Vallejo Friday that his son had been experiencing homelessness for the last few months, but that they kept in regular contact. On Friday evening, the young man was intoxicated, apparently armed, and said he wanted to be shot, according to his father.
“He made some mistakes,” James Schumann told Open Vallejo. “He thought he was going to get a way out tonight.”
James Schumann told Open Vallejo that his son became embroiled in an argument with the mother of his child, and soon banged on a window of his father’s apartment and said he wanted to die. James Schumann texted his son, but minutes later heard gunshots outside, he said.
“The gun, my son pointed it in the air. From what the police tell me, he shot it in the air, and then they shot him,” he told Open Vallejo. The toy gun recovered at the scene, wrapped in black tape and lacking a trigger, was not capable of firing live rounds.
Hollis said he was unaware of any conversation between James Schumann and officers before Saturday, and thus could not comment on the alleged discrepancy. The department has not released video of the incident or identified the officers who shot at Schumann.
Following the shooting, a California Highway Patrol helicopter landed in a grassy area of the apartment complex, damaging a tree before lifting off again with Alexander Schumann en route to John Muir Medical Center in Walnut Creek. James Schumann told Open Vallejo that his son underwent surgery Friday night.
James Schumann told Open Vallejo that police did not disclose which hospital his son had been taken to for an hour after the shooting.
“They got to protect themselves, I understand that. I’d like to know where he’s at, so I can get there and do what I need to do,” he said.
Hollis told Open Vallejo that Vallejo Police Chief Jason Ta and at least one department chaplain visited the hospital Saturday and subsequently spoke with James Schumann by phone.
“Hopefully, he gets a realization that God allows him to go through the things he needs to go through and make a better life for himself,” James Schumann said of his son.
At the scene, City Manager Andrew Murray told Open Vallejo he had little information about the incident. Vallejo Mayor Andrea Sorce told Open Vallejo Friday that the city planned to issue a statement; she did not respond to a request for comment Saturday. Vallejo City Councilmembers Tonia Lediju and Alexander Matias also visited the scene, Hollis said; they did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Officers from Benicia, American Canyon, and the Solano County Sheriff’s Office also responded to the shooting and provided support during the investigation. The District Attorney-led Solano County Major Crimes Task Force was on site, according to police, and will lead the criminal investigation under the county’s fatal incident protocol.
Open Vallejo research shows that from 2000 to 2020, Vallejo police shot someone once every four months, on average. In June 2020, the California Department of Justice launched a review of the Vallejo Police Department, prompted by the “number and nature” of shootings by officers. The following month, this newsroom revealed that for at least a generation, a group of officers would bend down the corners of their star-shaped badges to commemorate shooting civilians.
Following a failed collaborative reform effort, last year California Attorney General Rob Bonta sued Vallejo and forced the department into a formal settlement agreement.
Vallejo officers have not killed anyone in more than five years. The last Vallejo police shooting occurred in November 2023, when officer Matthew Komoda shot a minor suspected of armed robbery following a high-speed chase that ended near Sonoma Boulevard and Tennessee Street. In June 2023, Vallejo Police Ofc. Brad Kim shot a man following a botched gas station burglary, ending the department’s longest period between police shootings in recent history.
In June of 2020, Det. Jarrett Tonn fatally shot 22-year-old Sean Monterrosa from the backseat of an unmarked police truck after he allegedly mistook a hammer in Monterrosa’s hoodie for a gun. The Vallejo Police Department fired Tonn for the shooting in 2021 but reinstated him in August 2023 with full back pay following arbitration.
Vallejo police will hold a town hall within the next two weeks to share more information about the incident, according to the department’s press release.
This article has been updated to reflect a subsequent press release by the Vallejo Police Department and to add additional context regarding the California Department of Justice’s oversight of the agency.
