Fontana, CA: In Yucaipa, two Fontana police officers pulled over a black SUV. One of the officers asked the driver about what looked like a missing front licence plate. The man told the officer that he had been arrested before for having illegal fireworks, which made the officer laugh. They talked about camping in the snow, since the car had overland camping gear attached to it.
Officers named the driver as Alan Metka, 56, and asked him to get out of his car. A cop who was his partner would pat him down to make sure he didn’t have any weapons on him.
While the male officer went back to his car to look up Metka’s information, the female officer searched him and made a comment about how tall they were not being the same person.
After a few seconds, someone yelled, “He’s got a gun!”
“Let her go!” He yelled, “Let her go!” as he ran towards his partner, who was holding her head in a headlock.
The Fontana Police Department shared video from a body-worn camera on Thursday that shows the encounter on February 9.
Officials from Fontana Police Chief Michael Dorsey said in a taped statement that the male officer shot Metka near the jaw during the fight at Yucaipa Boulevard and 14th Street. Metka said that someone took a loaded semiautomatic gun from his pants pocket.
Metka denied that his front licence plate was missing, but the tape shows the male officer telling him that his window tint looked too dark.
The police officer asked Metka if he had been caught before, and he said that he had been about two years before for “explosives in public.”
The police officer laughed and said, “That’s an interesting one.”
Metka said that he was arrested for having fireworks and that he was locked up for 11 months.
The police officer asked him if he had any guns on him. No, he said.
The female cop touched him and asked, “What’s this right here?”
“My gun,” he replied.
Then, he grabbed her and put her head down, as seen on the tape.
The video doesn’t show the male cop firing his gun. On the other hand, the female officer’s camera shows him groaning in pain and showing blood on the road.
Dorsey said that his officers were looking into gangs and were in Yucaipa to help the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department, which is in charge of police in the city.
Police say Metka is being held at the Rancho Cucamonga West Valley Detention Centre on suspicion of assault with a dangerous weapon, resisting an executive officer, and being a felon in possession of a firearm. These charges are listed in the San Bernardino County jail records.
According to Dorsey, the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department and District Attorney’s Office are looking into what happened. “We are fully cooperating with the investigating agencies,” he said of the Fontana Police Department’s administrative review that was going on at the same time.
Dorsey said Metka has a “extensive criminal history,” including arrests for assault with a deadly weapon, carjacking, robbery, having an explosive device on hand, and having a gun without a permit.
Based on the Rialto Police Department, Metka was also arrested in 2021 at a petrol station in Fontana. He was reportedly found with several illegal guns and pipebombs.
