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The Alameda County District Attorney’s Office has determined a Pleasanton police officer acted in lawful self-defense when he shot and killed a local man who advanced on police with what turned out to be a realistic-looking BB gun in May 2017, and the officer will not face criminal charges, prosecutors revealed on Friday afternoon.
Pleasanton resident Shannon Edward Estill was shot twice by Pleasanton Police Department Officer Keith Batt after charging out of his garage toward the officer with a black, pistol-sized BB gun while Batt and other officers were outside Estill’s Burgundy Drive house responding to a domestic incident, according to deputy district attorney Chris Infante.
“The credible and admissible evidence shows that Officer Keith Batt acted in what he actually and reasonably believed to be self-defense and defense of others,” Infante wrote. “The examined evidence does not support the contention that the shooting of Mr. Estill was criminal.”
The full 25-page DA’s Office report, completed Aug. 14 and obtained by the Weekly on Friday afternoon, includes interviews with the three Pleasanton officers on scene and Estill’s wife and daughter, a summary of body camera footage from some officers and an overview of an Alameda County Coroner’s Bureau autopsy.
Batt, now in his 17th year with Pleasanton police, fired six shots in all from his department-issued semiautomatic rifle as an intoxicated Estill — who did not respond to police commands to yield — was running to within 10 feet away with what the officer thought was a real handgun, Infante said.
Estill, 58, was shot once in the chest initially and once in the head seconds later — both ultimately fatal wounds — in what at the time marked the second fatal officer-involved shooting for Pleasanton in as many years.
“This was a tragic event for all involved,” Police Chief Dave Spiller told the Weekly on Friday. “With the conclusion of the investigation by the District Attorney’s Office and the release of the D.A.’s report, our hope is that the Estill family can find closure and continue in their healing process.”
Batt was joined by another veteran officer and an officer-in-training in responding to the Estill house on Burgundy Drive just after 11:30 a.m. on May 20, 2017.
Police were dispatched there after receiving a call from Estill’s wife amid the domestic incident. Fearing for their safety, the wife and teenage daughter locked themselves in an upstairs bedroom and the wife told police her husband was in the garage where he had access to firearms.
That marked the second time Pleasanton police were called out to the house on that morning because of Estill’s behavior and his third run-in with law enforcement in less than 24 hours — information revealed for the first time publicly in the DA’s report, which described the series of events and evidence from the entire day.
Estill, who had been battling with alcoholism especially over the previous year, was arrested on suspicion of public intoxication around 12:30 p.m. on May 19, 2017 when a California Highway Patrol officer saw him staggering on a street in Castro Valley.
The Pleasanton man was booked into Santa Rita Jail in Dublin around 1:30 p.m., and then released from custody on a citation just before 1 a.m. the next morning.
Estill returned to his house about an hour later and was making a ruckus outside, where his wife found him intoxicated and bloody. She called Pleasanton police around 2:05 a.m. after reporting her husband grabbed her, later threatened to kill her and was in the garage where he kept his guns in a safe.
Police soon arrived, detained him and had him transported to Eden Medical Center in Castro Valley for treatment. The wife said she didn’t want her husband arrested, but police obtained an emergency protective order from the court barring Estill from coming within 100 yards of his wife and daughter.
An officer went to Eden but did not arrest Estill because he was being admitted to the hospital. Police at the time were unable to confiscate the firearms from Estill’s garage gun safe because the door was wedged in by a parked car that couldn’t be moved — they were told the guns were unloaded with no ammunition.
Estill was released from the hospital at 10:50 a.m., arrived back to the house 40 minutes later acting erratically and intoxicated, and gained entry to the garage, at which point the wife and daughter locked themselves in the master bedroom and called police.
Batt responded to the scene with Officer Brian Jewell, who was in field training supervised by Batt, and they were met by Officer Lisa Cavellini.
The officers began to walk around the property, with Batt and Cavellini armed with pistols and Jewell drawing his Taser. As Batt moved to the open side door to the garage and shouted for Estill to come out, officers heard the sounds of a shotgun being racked and Batt saw the muzzle pointed at him through the doorway.
The officers immediately retreated to the front of the house, where the main garage door was shut and two cars were parked in the driveway.
Jewell went toward a neighbor’s open garage for scene control, Cavellini took a post to the left part of the driveway and Batt ran to his patrol car to grab his duty rifle instead of the pistol.
The garage door then opened and Cavellini told Estill to show his hands. A rifle-armed Batt moved toward the driveway but Estill came out of the garage quickly toward Batt.
Batt yelled “Hands up” but Estill, who said nothing to police during this encounter, continued to move toward the officer while pointing a black gun, running between the cars in the driveway.
When Estill got within 10 feet, Batt fired five shots — one struck Estill in the chest and four hit the parked cars. Batt fell backward as he was backpedaling. He sat up and saw Estill on the ground but could not locate the gun and still viewed Estill as a threat. The officer fired a sixth shot, which hit Estill in the head.
The 58-year-old man died at the scene.
Batt told investigators in an interview that night, “He fell down but I’m on my back completely exposed and I’m thinking, if I just hit him in the knee … he might just shoot Lisa or shoot this way or shoot me, and so I came up, I still perceived him to be a threat.”
“There was no option but to shoot until he was not a threat. All he had to do is get one lucky shot on me, on Lisa, on the trainee,” said Batt, a firearms and patrol rifle instructor who has also taught active shooter response.
After the shooting, police discovered the gun Estill held was actually a black BB gun that had no markings to distinguish its appearance from a real firearm. They also found guns and ammunition in the garage. Estill did not fire any weapons at officers.
Batt’s body camera footage corroborated the description he gave to investigators and showed the three-second gap between the initial shots and the final one.
Cavellini’s body camera could only see Batt during the shooting because her view was blocked out by the Jeep in the driveway during the quick exchange. Jewell was retreating toward a neighbor’s open garage to tell her to go back inside, but his body camera footage cut off right before the shooting due to an apparent battery problem.
Estill’s wife and daughter, who remained in the upstairs bedroom and on the phone with emergency dispatch during the incident, were uninjured. No officers were hurt, and there were no neighbors near enough to witness the shooting.
The autopsy revealed the first shot to hit Estill would’ve been fatal, causing severe damage to the right lung, heart and liver. The second shot caused massive brain damage and numerous skull fractures. Toxicology testing found he had alcohol in his system.
Batt was placed on administrative leave in the immediate aftermath of the incident, as is practice in officer-involved shootings. It is unclear whether he was on leave for the entire 15-month DA’s investigation, but Spiller confirmed Batt has remained employed by Pleasanton police.
Batt is well-known in law enforcement circles in the Bay Area. He gained attention as a rookie officer with Oakland police as a whistleblower in the department’s so-called “Riders” police misconduct case involving other Oakland officers in 2000. He joined Pleasanton police the next year and has remained since.
Estill’s death was the last fatal officer-involved shooting for Pleasanton police, but it was preceded by a fatal incident just under two years earlier downtown. Prior to that, Pleasanton police hadn’t had an officer-involved shooting of any kind since 2005 — the department’s previous fatal shooting was 2000.
In the 2015 incident, San Jose resident John Deming Jr. was shot and killed by then-Officer Daniel Kunkel in the early-morning hours of July 5 during an altercation after the 19-year-old man reportedly tried to flee from police who were responding to a burglar alarm and found him acting erratically inside the Specialty Sales Classics car dealership on First Street.
The DA’s Office cleared Kunkel of criminal charges, deeming the officer acted in lawful self-defense. Deming’s family sued the police department for wrongful death, and the city settled the federal civil case for $285,000 and no admission of wrongdoing.
Pleasanton police did have an arrestee die following an altercation with officers earlier this month.
Jacob Bauer, 38, died at a local hospital while in police custody Aug. 1 after allegedly acting erratically in a grocery store and then fighting officers who were trying to detain him in the Oak Hills Shopping Center. Officers used Tasers to control Bauer, who showed signs of respiratory distress in an ambulance after his arrest, police said. That investigation is ongoing
Grand jury indicts three current, former deputies in Santa Rita Jail death caseDecember 18, 2025 8:44 am
Yeah….bad guy with lethal weapon vs officer with tech laso that wraps legs. Doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out who wins that one.
How about not pointing guns at officers, most non lethal tech readily available and everyone is already trained
@Kathleen Ruegsegger
After seeing your comments on the John Deming case and other cases in which an officer had to use his gun to protect himself against a perceived threat to his life or the lives of others, I knew you would be showing up to comment on this story, too. Looks like you’ve finally realized that the fundamental problem here with these cases isn’t misbehavior or poor judgement or lack of training by the officers but simply the fact that with current technology they have no other option than to use a gun in order to quickly stop a potentially dangerous suspect. Yes, officers do need better and more effective non-lethal tools than bean-bag guns and tasers (neither of which were effective against John Deming) when there is an urgent need to bring down a suspect. You finally hit the nail on the head. Maybe a technology like this rope gun that you linked to is the solution which will save lives in the future.
All for additional training and tools for officers to utilize for different situations.
Lets not kid ourselves though, if someone else points a gun at you without listening to prior warnings i, nor should we expect officers, would not reach for the spiderman web slinger.
@Pleasanton Parent
Why not? Works for Spider-Man.
Seriously, though. The point is that the ultimate solution for these types of police situations is the development of better, more effective non-lethal tools for officers.
Kathleen, perhaps that would work when there is not an imminent threat. If someone is armed with a knife and refusing to put it down from 15 feet away, than perhaps this tool might work. But keep in mind, like the taser, nonlethal tools can and will fail. With a suspect pointing a gun, there is an imminent threat to the officer where the only acceptable tool to pull off a cops belt is the gun. Using the rope tool will give the suspect the upper hand to fire off the first round.
In regards to the other case you mentioned, correct, the officer involved is no longer serving the community but that was not a punitive decision. The officer was cleared of criminal wrong doing but left the department on his own.
@Kathleen
Be respectful. You’re casting insinuations without any basis. Your “guessing” notwithstanding, the officer did nothing wrong in defending his own life.
@Kathleen, fear for life applies for anyone defending themselves, not just police. If a person comes at you with a knife or gun or is beating your head against the ground, you too can use self defense to protect yourself. It just happens that we ask our police officers to come in contact with mentally unstable, violent people every day. And then second guess them or want to think that they can hug it out and all will be ok. They do not always have an option to walk away,
@ Kathleen… Please educate yourself further. PPD offers a citizen’s academy which includes a session on the simulated firearms trainer. Give it a whirl and you may find that split second decision when someone points a gun at you isn’t that easy. I have done it and it is enlightening. You suggest that an officer use a rope gun to diffuse a violent, armed suspect who cares little for the officer or anyone else in their way. That is plain ignorance. How about comply with officer orders and the end result will not be tragedy to anyone.
As for Officer Kunkel, you claim you read the reports. If you did you would know he was on his back being attacked by Mr. Deming. Deming was tased, bean bagged and ultimately was on top of Kunkel, punching him repeatedly. He left Kunkel no choice but to use deadly force.
You are suspicious because the city paid a claim. Bottom line, it is more cost effective to pay a small amount than to litigate a case. How much did the OJ case cost tax-payers. If Demings family believed they had a legitimate case do you think they would have settled the case for the amount they got rather than millions? Have some respect for Kunkel and his family and don’t speculate on what you don’t know.
Regarding Kathleen…..yes, you do need to be further educated…we have five family members in the police force in various counties in California, three males and two females who were and are properly trained and now have high ranks within the force. They have sworn to protect you and me to the best of their ability giving much care to their decisions when it comes to
protecting themselves and their lives. Sometimes we are all to quick to make judge without knowing the facts or how you would respond if you were wearing those shoes at that most dangerous moment.
A little more respect and understanding for our first responders. Be more
supportive and have more compassion in your thoughts for all involved. I’m sure you would feel differently if you had a husband, son, daughter, grandson or grand daughter who was out there facing danger every moment of the day, wondering if you will see or hear them the next day.
We go through this everyday and every night.
May you find peace in your heart.
We have updated the story to include a link to the full DA’s Office report — after an internal upload issue. Thanks for your patience.
Kathleen, I was not implying that you should be trained like an officer. I was suggesting that maybe you should go and experience how difficult it is to make a life and death decision in about 1-2 seconds, before you make snap judgments about what an officer should or shouldn’t do.
Mr. Deming’s behavior the night he was shot was bizarre. He was not wearing a sign saying he had a mental illness. In fact, I don’t know that it was ever learned that he in fact had any mental illness. When one is combative and non-compliant, it is difficult to discern the difference between drug induced behavior and behavior resulting from mental illness.
Anytime anyone dies it is cause for concern. We can learn from every situation and improve. Officers should always have the best tools and training at their disposal. We hear about the unfortunate tragedies but there are countless individuals saved everyday by law enforcement personnel. We rarely hear about those.
Unfortunately, there are situations when someone dies and that is tragic. De-escalation ISN’T always possible. Loss of life is sensitive, no matter the circumstances. The affect on families is devastating, but don’t live in a bubble believing all violent confrontations can be eliminated by officers having more tools and training.
There is a device that could have saved all these men. https://ktla.com/2018/08/22/police-test-out-new-non-lethal-weapon-in-westminster/ It also would keep officers safe and prepared before or as they arrive at a scene. We must provide tools that will keep everyone as safe as possible.
I haven’t exactly changed my mind about Deming (there was a settlement and the officer no longer serves our community) or training (if it is true that de-escalation is only an hour) or for experts to be hired/available. But I believe, like training, officers need every tool available. I certainly don’t want officers injured or killed. Citizens either. This tool appears to be a step in a good direction for all.
Anonymous, no not even this weapon will work in all cases, but if an officer is called to a disturbance, they can be prepared to use it. The city somehow felt we needed a “little t” tank that I haven’t heard has ever been used. Surely we can add this tool to our squad cars.
As to the officer who left, I’m guessing it wasn’t all that voluntary (and we are the second job he departed from). But it’s a guess.
Doug, I have a lot of respect for our police department. That doesn’t carry to every individual blindly. I don’t know if you read all the reports back then, but I did. Fear of life, sadly, is one of the lowest bars to hurdle for any officer involved shooting, and that’s the case all across the US, not just here. In the end, sufficient training and the best tools available are the best hope for keeping officers and citizens safe.
Emily, Sure, I can defend myself with a conceal carry permit. I did not suggest the police hug it out. But I don’t think shooting is always the best solution either. There are other means to subdue people. I have said repeatedly that I want officers to have every tool available to them to keep themselves, and those they are meant to protect, safe. One life should not have a perceived greater value than another’s.
@Tom & Ken,
Police get all the respect they deserve. They chose how to earn their dollars. Plenty of people face risks. Deal with it.
Just the Facts: I am not trained like police officers are (or should be) in the critical moments of potential danger. The notion of compliance when you are dealing with people with possible brain injuries or a mental disability is where there is ignorance. I listed many questions when the report became available. I’ll let you find it.
Three men are dead. You should see that as a red flag or, at least, reason to believe we can improve. We managed in a fourth case to keep a distressed man alive. Again, more training and all the best tools for de-escalation to keep officers and citizens safe.
Concern continues to grow over officer conduct. Here are just a few cases: https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2018/08/20/what-kind-of-man-beats-up-a-disabled-76-year-old-grandmother-lawsuit-against-dublin-cop-alleges/ https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/17/us/woman-taser-georgia-cops.html https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Video-of-Vallejo-arrest-stirs-criticism-of-police-13183676.php
Tom and Ken, I applaud your family members. You have much to be proud of in their service to their communities and their deserved promotions.
Sanctity of life should apply to both sides–officers and those they serve–whenever possible. There are families on the other side of police guns and tasers who also worry every day for their loved ones–especially when that loved one can have a psychotic break and are incapable of responding as directed and who cannot explain their mental state to an officer. Let’s bring some peace to their hearts. It is not an insurmountable task.
I can only say the same things over and over. Jeremy published the report; read it carefully. See if you have questions. Or don’t.
It is unfortunate you say 1-2 seconds for the police, but say I’m making snap judgments. I don’t value an officer’s life more than a person in crisis. They are equally important. The onus for caution, however, is with the person in power.
We can do more, and we should. Pretty simple.
Report seems pretty straightforward to me. I think it drew the right conclusion in this case. Sad that alcohol and possible mental issues brought it to this point, but lots of threats to people inside and officers outside. Be nice if this guy didn’t have all the guns. Likely would have been a different outcome.
I apologize for the miscommunication; the report I mentioned is for John Deming. I know there is family that indicated Shannon Estill had a severe head injury that may have been a factor in his behavior, but I have not read this DA report.
Sometimes police murder people. Thank god this bad cop was brought to justice.
https://abcnews.go.com/US/texas-police-officer-found-guilty-murder-death-teenager/story?id=57455946