Newly released bodycam footage shows the final, harrowing minutes before Irvine police officers shot and killed Daniel Meltvedt, a 20-year-old autistic man who told officers he wanted to die and threatened to hurt them while holding a kitchen knife. The video, released by the Irvine Police Department, captures Meltvedt telling officers he was not afraid to die and asking them to take the shot before he ran toward a line of officers with the knife in his hand.
Meltvedt called 911 on July 21 to report that he had stopped taking an antipsychotic medication and wanted to take his life, according to the New York Post. Officers responded to the entrance of a closed-off trail in Irvine's Turtle Rock neighborhood, where Meltvedt was armed with the knife. According to MyNewsLA, the initial 911 call came in around 11:45 a.m. from Meltvedt's home on Evening Breeze, prompting officers to respond near Sungate and Silkwood.
In the footage, Meltvedt is heard saying he was worried about his own safety and that he would rather be shot because otherwise, he said, all the officers' employees would be killed. He told officers, “I'm not afraid of any of you to die,” and at another point asked them directly to take the shot. An Irvine police officer ordered him repeatedly to put the knife down as the department's crisis negotiation team worked to persuade him to drop it, while officers also deployed tasers during the standoff.
A Father Kept at a Distance
Daniel's father, independent documentary filmmaker Erich Meltvedt, arrived at the scene shortly after the 911 call and was present throughout the more than hour-long standoff. He asked to speak to his son to try to calm him down, but police kept him from talking to Daniel throughout the encounter, according to the Los Angeles Times. Officers reportedly assured the family during the standoff that they would not open fire, per the same account.
Erich has criticized the police response, saying he thought police would help his son but that they killed him instead. He advised that officers should have told Daniel exactly what to do, and he said seven officers should have been able to subdue one man armed with a five-inch blade. He has not been able to watch the newly released bodycam footage, per the Post's reporting.
Daniel eventually charged at the line of Irvine police officers while holding the kitchen knife, and officers fired eight gunshots. Paramedics rendered medical aid at the scene, but he was pronounced dead at a hospital. Daniel worked as a grocery store clerk at a nearby Pavilions and had been sent home early that day after a rough interaction with co-workers, according to the Los Angeles Times. The Times also reported that he held a tae kwon do black belt, was an avid surfer and bodybuilder, and lived independently before his death.
A Crisis Team That Couldn't Step In
Irvine operates the Irvine Community Alternative Response and Engagement (I-CARE) Team, launched in February 2025 to send unarmed crisis intervention specialists to nonviolent mental health calls, welfare checks and community care needs, according to the Irvine Police Department. I-CARE specialists responded to the scene on July 21, the department said, but stood by because Meltvedt was armed with a knife. Irvine police had previously responded to multiple mental health-related incidents involving Meltvedt and had connected him with follow-up support through I-CARE starting in 2025, with the department noting he was linked to care resources after each prior call.
Between its February 2025 launch and May 2026, the I-CARE team responded to more than 3,500 calls for service in Irvine and served as the primary responding unit in roughly 79 percent of them, according to a report presented to the Orange County Board of Supervisors. County supervisors approved additional discretionary funds in mid-2026 to expand the program's response capacity. But the program's design does not extend to encounters involving weapons, leaving armed crisis calls like Meltvedt's under standard police protocol.
Legal Standards and an Ongoing Investigation
Because Meltvedt was armed, the shooting falls under the jurisdiction of the Orange County District Attorney's Office rather than the state Attorney General. Under California Assembly Bill 1506, which took effect in July 2021, the state Department of Justice automatically investigates fatal officer-involved shootings only when the victim is unarmed, according to the California Department of Justice. Police said the investigation into the shooting could take up to a year.
The investigation will be measured against California Assembly Bill 392, which took effect in January 2020 and raised the legal threshold for police use of deadly force from “reasonable” to “necessary” to defend against an imminent threat of death or serious bodily injury, per the ACLU of Southern California. That standard requires investigators to weigh not just the moment of the shooting but the officers' actions leading up to it.
Research cited by the Treatment Advocacy Center and referenced by New Santa Ana indicates that people living with severe, untreated mental illness are roughly 16 times more likely to be killed during an encounter with law enforcement than other civilians. Advocacy groups often cite that statistic when arguing for expanded unarmed crisis response programs like Irvine's I-CARE team. Irvine has for years touted its standing as one of the country's safest cities, having held the lowest per capita violent crime rate among U.S. cities with populations over 250,000 for 18 consecutive years as of 2022 FBI data, a distinction the Irvine Police Department has attributed to its community-oriented policing model.
