8/14/2010, 4:11 p.m. PT
Rebecca Woolington
The Associated Press
(AP) — HILLSBORO, Ore. - Officer Jesus Rios-Calderon kept his left hand on his radio and right hand on his gun as he entered the empty J.P. Cuisine restaurant in downtown Hillsboro.
It was after 9:25 p.m. on June 17, and the officer wasn't sure what was wrong, only that someone called 9-1-1 from inside the restaurant before the line was disconnected.
The front door was unlocked when the officer arrived. Once inside, he saw drops of blood on the kitchen floor.
Suddenly, a man covered in blood moved into the doorway of a back room. Rios-Calderon immediately thought the man had been injured and moved closer to help until he was about 4 to 5 feet away.
The man stepped into the kitchen, and said he had just killed his wife. The officer saw the man was holding a butcher knife in his right hand.
"I was scared from the second he told me he killed his wife 'Oh, s---' is the only way to say it," Rios-Calderon said. "I know people are always like, 'Police officers aren't afraid,' but yeah, we're afraid. When he said that, I am like, 'This guy just killed his wife, what am I to him?'"
The officer took a step backward. The blood-soaked man moved closer to him. "It was like we were dancing," Rios-Calderon said.
The officer tried to calm the man down and told him to let go of the knife. But he said the man raised the knife next to his head, its tip pointed toward the officer.
"He told me to kill him, and I am thinking, 'No,'" he said. "He rushes me, then I unholster and fire."
The man cringed, but then moved about 5 feet forward.
"I was thinking, 'I am going to have to shoot him again,'" Rios-Calderon said. "You would think someone would just drop. Then, I was thinking, 'Maybe I just grazed him because there was no time to aim.'"
The man then crumpled to the floor, rolling onto his back, his hand slowly releasing the knife. The officer, his heart racing, realized he may have just killed the man.
"I didn't even hear the shot."
The violent encounter inside the J.P. Cuisine restaurant was one of four officer-involved shootings in Washington County within a month, two of which were fatal.
Chief Deputy District Attorney Rob Bletko last month reviewed Rios-Calderon's actions and found his use of force justified.
Rios-Calderon, 34, spoke to The Oregonian last week about his experience that night, providing a glimpse into the mind of an officer forced to make decisions within seconds.
He recounted how the incident has since affected his life both on and off duty. He spoke of his hesitation to pull his gun out, and of his simultaneous awareness that he may have no other option.
"I didn't want to shoot him," he said. "I was hoping my backup would get there,I was hoping he'd drop the knife."
Seconds after Rios-Calderon shot the man, three Hillsboro officers entered the restaurant, their guns drawn. They quickly checked on Rios-Calderon.
"I was just overwhelmed," he said. "It's a shock-you could say that. There's rapid breathing and you're thinking, 'What happened?' It's something you're told might happen, but you hope would never happen."
Two officers searched the restaurant, while Rios-Calderon stood near the man, who was breathing, but moved little. An officer, with help from Rios-Calderon, handcuffed him. When the man began having trouble breathing, an officer began administering chest compressions.
Rios-Calderon heard the officers in the back. "Ma'am, ma'am, are you OK?" he heard them say before an officer rubbed his shoulders and guided him outside the restaurant. He took a last look at the man.
"They were doing CPR, and he was still breathing, when I left," he said. "His breathing was labored, which is a weird sound."
An officer took the shaken Rios-Calderon to a Comfort Inn on Northeast Cornell Road. At the hotel, investigators took photographs of Rios-Calderon and took his uniform, handgun and duty belt into evidence.
He thought of calling his wife, but he didn't want to wake her or their baby. Investigators told him he needed to call her, so she didn't hear about the shooting on the news.
"I told her there was a shooting, and that I was OK," he said. He told her no officers were injured. He didn't tell her he was the shooter; he didn't want to worry her, and he didn't want to give her too many details.
Time passed while he waited for investigators to call him back to the scene. At about 1:30 a.m., an officer took him back, and he showed detectives where everything took place. The restaurant was filled with investigators and crime-scene technicians.
When he finished, an officer came to take him from the restaurant. Rios-Calderon asked if the man had died, and the officer confirmed that he had.
"I just wanted to know," he said. "It didn't change how I felt-I was upset. He's still a person. ... What helped was I knew I did the right thing."
Even so, Rios-Calderon wondered if his kids would still love him.
The man who was rushed from the J.P. Cuisine restaurant that night was Diosdado Pabingwit Jr., 51, who owned the business with his wife, Jocelyn Pabingwit, 46.
He later died from a single gunshot wound to the chest at OHSU Hospital. She was found dead in an office in the back of the restaurant with multiple stab wounds.
Through subsequent interviews with friends and family members, investigators found that Jocelyn Pabingwit wanted a divorce, but her husband did not. The Pabingwits had attended marriage counseling the day before. Police had no record of domestic violence between the couple.
In addition to his gunshot wound, Diosdado Pabingwit's autopsy determined that he had stab wounds to his torso, neck and wrists, according to investigative reports released last month from the district attorney's office.
"The evidence indicates that Mr. Pabingwit, distressed over his wife's desire to end their marriage, murdered her and then attempted to kill himself," Bletko wrote in upholding Rios-Calderon's actions. "When he was unable to kill himself, Mr. Pabingwit forced Officer Rios-Calderon to shoot him."
Bletko determined it was unnecessary to send the case to a grand jury.
Rios-Calderon said he came home at about 3 a.m. He let his wife sleep.
"I thought, 'Why wake her?'" he said.
His wife, Anne Rios, said she got up around 7 a.m. with the couple's youngest child. She turned the news on and watched a story about the shooting.
"I was kind of just trying to piece together if it was him," she said. "I thought, 'Wow, that's a really violent case.' Then, they said there was only one officer involved. I was like, 'Oh my God. That was Jesus.' "
Stunned by the news, she went upstairs to wake her husband. Rios-Calderon confirmed he was the shooter.
"My wife was in shock," he said. She didn't want to know many details, he said. Anne Rios said she didn't ask too many questions-she just tried to offer her ear.
"I was just kind of worried about him," she said. "I was not sure how he was going to be able to deal with taking someone's life. I wasn't sure how he was going to find peace with himself."
As the couple talked in their bedroom, Rios-Calderon was still shaken by the incident. "He just wanted someone to listen," she said.
Later that day, Anne Rios said she told her 16-year-old daughter about the shooting, as they drove to her job interview.
That evening, around dinnertime, Rios-Calderon said he sat down to talk to his children. He told them a man with a knife charged him, and he shot him.
"I asked my kids what they think of me-that's what I care about," he said. "The main question is, 'Do you still love me?' I am the same guy I was yesterday, and the year before. I will be the same guy tomorrow. I just wanted to make sure they understood my job."
Rios-Calderon has four children: three daughters, ages 16, 7 and 2, and an 11-year-old son. He said the older children are aware of the risks associated with his job.
"They told me they understood," he said.
He said he wasn't sure what that meant exactly, but he wasn't going to press it.
"It was a different conversation," he said.
For the next two weeks, Rios-Calderon was on administrative leave, which is standard practice in officer-involved shootings.
He saw a police psychiatrist once, and talked about the shooting with fellow officers. He's replayed those seconds over and over, in slow motion even though they happened in an instant.
"It was-it felt like everything happened in seconds," he said. "One thing, then the next and the next, you're just reacting to what's happening."
He's thought of how the man's behavior and gaze were disconnected.
"Most people have a sparkle or shine to their eyes," he said. "I know that sounds weird, but his eyes were gray. ... It wasn't like he was talking to me? just at me."
Before the man charged toward him, Rios-Calderon thought about switching from holding his radio with his left hand to his right. Doing so, would free his left hand to use his Taser, which he carries on his left side.
"I knew if he rushed me, I would have to shoot him, but it's not ingrained in you to kill somebody."
He thought that if he could have moved far enough away from the man, he'd have had options about the force he could use.
"If he wouldn't have kept coming, I could have if you have more distance, you can plan, but if someone is close ..." said Rios-Calderon, his voice trailing off, his green eyes cast downward.
Before he could switch hands, the man "took off."
"I am sorry that he had to die," he said. "I was hoping that I didn't kill him? I didn't want to kill him. Did I want to stop him? Yes."
He's thought of how the man's family must feel.
"It's a tragedy for the family," he said. "I can only imagine how they feel? father got shot, and the mother was killed. I feel bad for them."
He was eager to return to duty.
"I would rather go back to work and do what I do," he said. "Taking calls and doing my job? the same routine? is the best way to forget about that."
On his first day back to work on July 2, Rios-Calderon was dispatched to an incomplete 9-1-1 call. Rios-Calderon said he didn't think twice before going.
"If you let it get to you, it's just going to eat away at you," he said. "I just leave it in the past. Today is the present? I just see what today brings."
He's aware and alert, not paranoid. The same calling that drove him to become a police officer in the first place continues to bring him to work each day: the goal of helping people.
"I love my job? I love coming to work," he said. "I want to be a police officer for the longest time."
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