Timothy Joseph O’Keefe, a convicted stalker and registered sex offender, was shot by two UCSD campus police officers the day after Christmas when he allegedly broke into an unoccupied Marshall apartment. He later pleaded innocent from his Scripps hospital bed at his arraignment Dec. 29.
Guardian
O’Keefe, a 45-year-old white male, allegedly broke into the unoccupied apartment at approximately 10:50 p.m. on Dec. 26. Neighbors spotted him crawling into the window and alerted the police. When the police arrived, O’Keefe ran out of the apartment and back in before returning outside with two kitchen knives. At that point, O’Keefe told the officers “”You’ll have to shoot me”” and lunged at them with the knives.
The officers each fired one shot, wounding O’Keefe in the right hand and chest.
O’Keefe is a San Diego local and has often run aground of the law on local college campuses both prior to and after the 10 years he spent in prison. O’Keefe served 10 years in Vacaville after his arrest for burglary and prowling on the Point Loma Nazarene College campus. He was paroled to San Diego in 1998 and was the subject of a Jan. 27, 2000 police briefing at UCSD.
“”We received a bulletin in January of 2000 from Point Loma that this is an individual who frequents local colleges,”” said UCSD Police Sergeant Jeff Cox who noted that he was not aware of any incidents at UCSD related to O’Keefe. “”But we’ve had no personal contacts with him.””
Cox also said that the tenant of the apartment is female but that it was not known if O’Keefe knew her.
“”We don’t know what his intention was that night,”” said Cox.
Lieutenant Ray Sigwalt heads the San Diego Police Department’s Homicide Unit.
“”My gut feeling is probably that it is more than meets the eye,”” Sigwalt said. “”He has a history. This was not random.””
The officers who shot O’Keefe remain unidentified and have been put on paid administrative leave. The District Attorney’s office will conduct an investigation to determine whether the shooting was warranted, as is standard procedure with all shootings involving police.
O’Keefe is charged with residential burglary and assault with a deadly weapon and faces a 25-to-life sentence under California’s Three Strikes Law if convicted. After his release from the hospital O’Keefe will be held in jail without bail.
