Body camera footage capturing the chaotic final moments before a Simi Valley police shooting is now public, showing the sequence of events that left a 37-year-old man dead after a high-speed pursuit through the city in July. The California Department of Justice has identified the man killed as Anthony Thompson, a Simi Valley resident, after earlier police statements had only described him as a 37-year-old male resident.
As CBS News Los Angeles reported, reporter Brittney Ermon detailed how the newly released footage captures the chaos leading up to the deadly encounter, in which police shot and killed Thompson following the pursuit. The Simi Valley Police Department officially uploaded the body camera video to YouTube on September 4, roughly six weeks after the shooting occurred on Dusan Street, according to the California Department of Justice. That timeline lines up with California's Assembly Bill 748, which requires law enforcement agencies to release video and audio recordings of critical incidents within 45 calendar days, per PORAC. Agencies can only delay disclosure beyond that window if releasing the footage would substantially interfere with an active criminal or administrative investigation.
How the Pursuit Began
The incident traces back to an 8:15 a.m. domestic violence and elder abuse call on July 21, though Thompson had already fled the scene before officers arrived, according to the Los Angeles Times. Family members at that initial call warned officers that Thompson claimed to be armed with a firearm and had threatened to shoot it out with law enforcement, the newspaper reported.
The pursuit that followed ended on Dusan Street, where Thompson's pickup truck struck an unmanned Simi Valley police motorcycle and a parked trailer just before officers opened fire, the Simi Valley Acorn reported. Scene photos and video reviewed by that outlet showed a damaged police motorcycle left on the curb and bullet holes in the truck's windshield. No officers were injured in the shooting.
State Investigators Name Five Officers Involved
State investigators with the California Department of Justice identified five Simi Valley officers as involved in the shooting: Edward Brockschmidt, Brett Suliga, Gene Colato, Bryan Sarfaty, and Evan Hutchins. Their names had not been disclosed in initial news releases following the incident.
The day after the shooting, California Attorney General Rob Bonta announced that the state DOJ's California Police Shooting Investigation Team had taken over primary responsibility for investigating the case under Assembly Bill 1506, a law that automatically triggers a state takeover when an officer-involved shooting results in the death of an unarmed civilian. All five officers were placed on paid administrative leave while the department's Professional Standards Bureau conducts its own internal inquiry, a standard procedure that runs parallel to the state's independent criminal investigation, according to KEYT.
Second Shooting Involving Simi Valley Police in a Month
The July 21 shooting marked the second officer-involved shooting linked to the Simi Valley Police Department that month, following a July 2 incident at Los Robles Regional Medical Center in Thousand Oaks, where an officer guarded a domestic violence suspect, per the Simi Valley Acorn. In that hospital incident, the suspect survived his injuries and was later charged with attempted murder, the outlet noted.
Assembly Bill 1506, signed into law in 2020 and effective since July 2021, shifted primary investigatory authority for fatal officer-involved shootings of unarmed civilians away from local district attorneys and toward the state Attorney General's office statewide. When the law took effect, the state DOJ anticipated reviewing roughly 40 fatal shooting cases annually across California, according to CapRadio.
The state's investigation into Thompson's death remains active, and it is not yet known whether any of the five officers involved will face criminal charges. No further updates on the internal or state review have been made public since the body camera footage was released this week.
