This is a developing story and we’ll continue to update it.
Richmond police on Friday identified the suspect in the shooting of a police officer who was responding to a mental health crisis.
Police said officer Justin Church was wounded in the Thursday night incident. Jasmine Robinson, 39, was arrested later that night. Church has been in law enforcement for 25 years.
The shooting happened around 6:45 p.m. in the 2200 block of Key Boulevard near Macdonald Avenue after Contra Costa County’s A3 team called Richmond police for assistance as they conducted a mental health check on a resident.
“When circumstance present a potential safety concern, A3’s practice and policy allow them to request presence of a law enforcement officer,” Richmond Police Chief Timothy Simmons said. “Due to the nature of the call that A3 was on, A3 requested a Richmond police officer accompany them to that location.”
Simmons said that Church was “almost immediately” struck by gunfire when he got to the scene. Robinson is accused of shooting multiple rounds from inside the residence, which appears to be an older yellow two-story apartment complex, striking homes and vehicles while residents were ordered to take shelter.
In Friday’s update, police added that a second officer was inside a patrol vehicle that was struck by gunfire but was not injured.
Church was treated at a hospital and has since been released.
After the shooting, Simmons said, Robinson barricaded herself inside the residence and Richmond police’s SWAT team and crisis negotiators responded which prompted officers to use chemical agents on the home. On Friday morning, Richmond fire officials and investigators remained ventilating the home with large commercial fans.
“Several rounds struck neighboring homes, vehicles, even a patrol car,” Simmons said. “Fortunately, no residents or additional personnel were injured.”
Are you experiencing a mental health crisis?
You can call Contra Costa County’s A3 Miles Hall Crisis Call Center, 844-844-5544. Counselors are available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
You can also call 988 or text “HOPE” to 20121.
If it’s a life-threatening emergency, call 911.
Eventually, Robinson came out of the home and was taken into custody at about 8:45 p.m.
“Given the number of rounds fired this incident could have ended with many additional injuries or several losses of life,” Simmons said.
When asked how many rounds were fired, Simmons said the investigation was ongoing and that he could only describe it as “multiple,” saying that shots were fired in different directions.
Richmond Police Lt. Joseph England said that officers did not use their firearms during the incident.
“I want to make that clear. None of our officers discharged their firearms,” England said.
Police said in Friday’s update that Church was released from the hospital around 3 p.m. and that Robinson is being held on $500,000 bail on charges of attempted murder, assault with an assault weapon on a person and kidnapping.
Police have not released any information about the reason behind the pending kidnapping charge.
“As the investigation remains ongoing, additional charges against Robinson are anticipated,” Friday’s press release states. “We are grateful that our officer has been released from the hospital and, most importantly, did not suffer life-threatening injuries.”
The incident brings to mind a discussion that the police had with the city council in July, where department leadership said it’s exploring applying for grant funding to help pay for an armored vehicle that it could use in such situations. Currently, the department relies on outside agencies for such a vehicle and it can take hours to arrive.
During that discussion, Simmons told council members about a 2024 neighborhood shooting in Montalvin Manor where a resident was shooting at officers from inside a home.
“We had no capacity at all to try to get to those neighbors to try to get them out of their homes,” Simmons said. “We tried with patrol cars. Our patrol cars took rounds and somebody mentioned (earlier) about bullets going through cars. Those rifle rounds went through our cars like Swiss cheese.”
A3 offers countywide 24/7 care for people in crisis
A3, which stands for “anyone, anywhere, at anytime” is a 24/7 county service that sends licensed clinicians and other experts to help people experiencing a behavorial health crisis.
County residents can contact the A3 Miles Hall Crisis Call Center, named for a 23-year-old man shot to death by Walnut Creek police during a mental crisis in 2019, multiple ways — 911, 988, 211. The direct number is 844-844-5544.
Callers can get help by phone immediately, according to the county, and 75% of the calls are resolved that way, but teams do respond in person if needed. In the most acute emergencies, the responders include peer support specialists, a behavioral health clinician and law enforcement.
The incident prompted a shelter-in-place order for residents near the Richmond and El Cerrito border that was lifted just before 9 p.m.
Multiple agencies, including the Contra Costa County Sheriff’s Office, El Cerrito police and the East Bay Regional Park District police also responded.
Richmondside arrived just before 10 p.m. and observed a person being taken on a stretcher and put into an ambulance in the parking lot of Planet Fitness.
News of the incident first broke via Nextdoor as well as a pair of Instagram videos showing the response around the Planet Fitness and the Grocery Outlet nearby.
Simmons said that the police presence at the gym and the grocery store were the agencies setting up a staging area.
England said that investigators were still at the scene as of midnight and that on Friday the department would release more information on the incident and potential charges the woman could face.
The shooting is the third in a series of particularly difficult events Richmonders have experienced during the last two weeks. The week of Aug. 19 a man was arrested on suspicion of setting a fire that killed four of his family members, two of them young children; and last weekend a man was arrested in the hit-and-run death of a well-known 81-year-old man. Last night’s press conference was the third to be held in recent days.
On Friday morning, yellow police tape was still scattered throughout the neighborhood with police investigators and firefighters at the scene.
The crunching of glass could be heard as officials walked on the side of the yellow apartment building. The first level window on the side of the building was broken.
A next-door neighbor to the incident, who did not want to be identified due to safety concerns, told Richmondside that he was stuck inside of his home shortly before 7 p.m. and was unable to leave until around 10 p.m.
“I had to take my girlfriend to the airport in San Francisco and she couldn’t get back to the house so we could leave,” he said. “She was stuck on the other side of San Pablo (Avenue).”
The neighbor said his son woke him up as he was taking a nap and the two heard multiple gunshots, though he said that none of the shots hit his home.
“This is a quiet area,” he said, adding that he’s lived in the home for the past 15 years. “We didn’t know the lady involved or hear anything from this home at all before this.”
According to the man, the area along Key Boulevard during the pandemic had a number of RVs that unhoused people were living in but said that in recent years the city had “cleaned it up.”
