A San Pasqual tribal police officer pressed his gun against the neck of a handcuffed 15-year-old boy and threatened to kill him during a traffic stop — and that officer, Christopher Palomares, is now the department's chief. Body-camera video and case documents obtained by investigators show the encounter unfolded after officers pulled over a car carrying four occupants, two of them 15-year-olds and two of them 19-year-olds, near the San Pasqual reservation in Valley Center.
According to NBC 7 San Diego, which obtained Palomares' body-camera video and case documents, officers handcuffed, searched and questioned all four occupants after the adult driver told them there might be a gun inside the car. Palomares' own report claimed the driver had run a stop sign, and license-plate cameras had connected the vehicle to being near a drive-by shooting two nights before the stop, the outlet reported. During the search, an officer announced he had found a handgun on Mathew Kirby Jr., and police reports identified it as a ghost gun; a second ghost gun and cocaine were later found elsewhere in the car, per the same reports.
It was at that point, per the video reviewed by NBC 7, that Palomares threatened to kill Kirby Jr. if he moved, pressing his weapon to the teenager's neck. Kirby Jr. told the station he thought he was going to die while officers restrained him. His mother, Rachel Kirby, who was born and has lived on the San Pasqual reservation for three decades, said her son came close to losing his life over what began as a routine traffic stop.
A Disputed Detail in the Paperwork
Palomares' supplemental report stated that Kirby was tense and uncooperative and was not handcuffed when the gun was found on him, but body-camera video appears to dispute that account of the teen's handcuff status, according to NBC 7's review of the footage. The dossier of case documents examined by the station, which includes police reports, evidence forms, a search warrant and citations, does not resolve which version is accurate. Four suspects ultimately received tribal citations, and the San Diego County District Attorney's Office did not prosecute any of them, even though California holds the authority to prosecute crimes occurring on tribal land.
Former U.S. Attorney Phillip Talbert said the FBI ought to investigate the incident, telling the station that officers may use force to defend themselves and the public only when it is reasonable. Talbert cited 18 U.S.C. § 242, the federal statute that prohibits willfully threatening someone with a dangerous weapon under color of law. Under that law, willfully depriving a person of constitutional rights while acting under color of law carries a federal statutory maximum of 10 years in prison when the offense involves the use, attempted use or threatened use of a dangerous weapon, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. Federal civil rights law allows the DOJ to pursue such cases under that statute regardless of whether local or tribal prosecutors elect to file charges of their own.
Certification Questions Surround the Chief
Palomares' path to leading the department raises its own questions. California POST records showed he never earned a basic peace officer certificate, the station reported, even though his search-warrant affidavit — signed by a judge one month after the traffic stop — claimed he received a basic POST certificate in 2006. POST told the station Palomares was ineligible for a certificate because he was hired for only four months as a Level II reserve officer, and records show he resigned as a reserve officer from the Cathedral City Police Department after four months in that role. He was a corporal in 2025 before being elevated to chief of the San Pasqual Tribal Police Department, and he declined to answer NBC 7's questions and did not respond to the outlet's emailed request for comment.
Law enforcement experts told the station that Palomares' actions could constitute criminal police misconduct. Paul Cappitelli, who served as a law enforcement officer for 45 years and led the California Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training from 2007 to 2012, said officers should never point a gun at someone to intimidate or coerce. Cappitelli and Talbert both said incidents like this damage community faith in law enforcement. The Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training, created by the state legislature to train and certify officers, oversees more than 600 California law enforcement agencies that participate in the POST program, and it can suspend and decertify officers for serious misconduct under Senate Bill 2, a 2021 law implemented in January 2023 that made California's decertification system possible after the state was one of only four in the country without one, per the Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training.
Why Tribal Police Fall Outside Normal Oversight
Tribal police departments are not required to be POST certified, a gap rooted in Public Law 280, the 1953 federal law that transferred legal and police authority on tribal land in California to the state, according to the Lost Coast Outpost. That framework means county sheriffs hold mandatory state law enforcement responsibilities on reservation lands, while tribal officers like those at San Pasqual operate without automatic state peace officer authority of their own. The San Diego County Sheriff's Office said the FBI was investigating the incident, and the FBI San Diego field office said it could neither confirm nor deny the existence of a federal investigation. The San Pasqual Tribal Police Department and tribal chairman denied NBC 7's request for all body-camera videos, citing the ongoing investigation, and tribal chairman Stephen Cope declined to comment on the traffic stop. NBC 7 Investigates did not obtain body-camera video from the officer who appeared to remove the handgun from Kirby Jr.'s pants.
California lawmakers have moved recently to address exactly this kind of jurisdictional gap. Assembly Bill 134, enacted in 2025, establishes a three-year tribal police pilot program running from July 2026 to July 2029 that would let designated tribal officers in Public Law 280 territory gain official state peace officer status, provided their tribes submit to POST oversight and grant a limited waiver of sovereign immunity, according to LegiScan. The San Pasqual reservation itself spans roughly 1,380 acres across five non-contiguous tracts in Valley Center, home to a community of about 800 to 1,600 residents and more than 350 homes, per the U.S. Department of Energy — a footprint shaped by a long history of land loss after the tribe was evicted from a 92,000-acre reservation in 1901 and later resettled on smaller tracts. Hoodline has previously covered land-return efforts involving the tribe, and the department has also been the subject of past internal misconduct allegations, including a former officer's 2023 claims that prior leadership brandished a loaded firearm at an employee and ordered evidence destroyed.
