Man Fatally Shot by Police After 3-Hour Chase

A man described as depressed over business reversals led authorities on a three-county auto chase that ended Monday morning, when police fatally shot him after he pointed a loaded handgun at them, authorities said.

The dead man was identified as Stephen Bayer, 39, of Apple Valley. While his family stood down the street, pleading to speak to Bayer, he held a gun on himself, then stepped out of his older-model Mercedes and aimed his .45-caliber handgun at SWAT officers, authorities said.

After the shooting, grieving family members criticized police. “I could have said, ‘Steve, give me the gun,’ and he would have done it,” said Sid Bayer, the dead man’s father. “But they murdered my son. They took a person’s life like it belonged to them, and they are going to cover it up. . . . It didn’t have to happen. All they had to do was let me talk to him.”

But Simi Valley officers, who recently underwent training in how to deal with armed, suicidal suspects, believe Bayer may have wanted to die and threatened officers so they would shoot him.

Simi Valley Police Lt. Neal Rein describes it as a classic case of “suicide by cop.”

“There is no question in my mind that’s what he was trying to do,” Rein said.

The chase began just after 11 p.m. Sunday in San Bernardino County’s Apple Valley area. San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Deputy Jeff Andrade noticed Bayer’s beige Mercedes parked alongside the road.

“Its lights were out, and it looked either broken down or suspicious,” Andrade said.

Andrade and his partner shined a light on Bayer’s car, which prompted Bayer to shout obscenities at the deputies before speeding away, officials said. The three-hour chase proceeded west on Interstate 10 to the northbound 605 Freeway, west on the 210 and 134 freeways, north on Interstate 5 and west on the 118 Freeway, before Bayer exited in Simi Valley.

Along the way, officers said, Bayer tossed out a beer bottle and then blew out his own rear windshield firing at pursuing California Highway Patrol officers in Rancho Cucamonga. No officers were hit, though one bullet pierced a patrol car, authorities said.

Bayer also fired shots at pursuing officers in Simi Valley and crashed through a gate guarding the parking lot to the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, police said. He sped off again, but police dropped a spike strip along the road, flattening the tires on Bayer’s car.

Bayer pulled his battered Mercedes into a dirt driveway leading to a cluster of homes on Leeds Street. Authorities said friends of Bayer live in one of the homes. Bayer placed a gun at his head and yelled to 20 officers surrounding his car that they would either have to kill him or he would shoot himself or an officer, Rein said.

Mental health experts called to the scene failed to coax him out of the car.

Many residents along the street awoke before 2 a.m. to the blare of sirens and helicopter spotlights. Antique-mall employee Jeanie Ervin, who lives next door to the standoff site, was among them.

“Out of my bathroom window I could see all the policemen trying to talk Bayer down,” said Ervin, 40. “They told him, ‘It isn’t worth it. Life is too precious. What about your children? What about your family?’ He said his family didn’t matter anymore. . . . They said, ‘Look Steve, this is not the way to go. We know you’re a nice guy. Just put the gun down, get out of the car and we’ll talk.’ ”

Ervin said police seemed to be trying everything they could to get him out of the car.

“He wanted water, so the police got it and rolled it to his door,” she said. “They were great with him, but he wasn’t buying it.”

Periodically, Bayer would curl up in the car and rest. “You could tell he was tired,” another neighbor said.

Sid Bayer, an Apple Valley resident, said he and his wife rushed to Simi Valley after friends at the house on Leeds Street called to tell him what was happening. He arrived before shots were fired and begged futilely for a chance to reason with his son.

At 6 a.m., seven hours after the chase began, officers tossed tear gas into the car. Bayer got out and pointed his handgun at police.

A short distance away, Sid Bayer stood with his son’s daughter, Amber, 18, and listened to the volley of gunfire erupting from police weapons.

“Pop, pop, pop, and his daughter freaked out,” Sid Bayer said. “Every time she hears pop, pop, pop, she’ll think of her dad getting murdered.”

Despite the angry comments from Bayer’s family, Simi officers say they believe they made the right decision in refusing to allow relatives to talk to the distraught man. History has shown that often family members agitate the suicidal person even more, Rein said. And it interrupts the rapport mental health experts are carefully trying to build with the person, he said.

“I know they do it in movies, and it looks good,” Rein said. “But I’ve learned based on experience from people who do this all the time that bringing family members in is not generally a good idea.”

The dead man’s stepmother, June Tuttle, said Bayer was struggling to keep his Apple Valley business afloat. He and his father jointly owned the Bayer Dental Lab, a dental prosthetics business.

“He had quite a lot of turmoil,” Tuttle said of Bayer. “Things had gotten slow. So, when you need to make money to support three kids, what do you do? He never gave up. He did the best he could.”

Tuttle said Bayer was working 16 hours a day to make ends meet, dividing his time between his business and a second job at a Van Nuys dental lab.

Tuttle said Bayer had struggled with depression in the past but that it never seemed serious and he never talked about suicide.

Sid Bayer, who gathered with relatives at another son’s home in Simi Valley, said Stephen had been in and out of trouble with the law.

“He was a kid,” he said. “He was 39 years old, but he just wouldn’t grow up.” His license had recently been revoked, but he continued to drive to and from work, his father said.

“I guess when he got stopped, he just panicked,” Sid Bayer said.

Bayer remembered his son as someone who loved working on cars and was good with animals.

“I used to call him Mowgli from the ‘Jungle Book,’ because he could take any animal and it would be tame,” he said.

“I’ll miss him,” Tuttle added. “We’ll all miss him. He’s just been taken away, and I don’t know why.”