Police Brutality / Individual record
Matthew Tucker
The Washington Post's Fatal Force database records Matthew Tucker in a fatal on-duty police shooting on 2016-05-04 in Temecula, CA. Individual circumstances and legal outcome require case-specific review.
- Record ID
- PB-421
- Incident date
- May 4, 2016
- Outcome
- Fatal
- Location
- Temecula, CA
- Agency
- Temecula Police Department
- Category
- Fatal on-duty police shooting
- Age (reported)
- 18
What happened
Matthew Tucker, 18, was killed by Riverside County Sheriff's Sergeant Michael Hamilton during a response to a mental-health crisis at the family's Temecula, California, home on May 4, 2016. His mother Jenny Tucker had called 911 because her son was suicidal after a breakup, was isolated in his room and reportedly had access to a knife. Officers entered the home and Hamilton shot Tucker; the family alleged the deputies escalated a crisis that called for care. In a federal wrongful-death trial in 2018, Hamilton testified that he believed Tucker presented an immediate danger, while the family challenged the necessity of deadly force and department crisis-response practices. The public court reporting establishes competing accounts and sworn testimony, not that the plaintiffs' allegations were fully proved.
Investigation & findings
Individual legal and investigative outcome not yet reviewed.
Washington Post Fatal Force v2; 2015–2024
Source record details
- Source incident ID
- 1512
- Race code in source
- B
- Race source method
- not_available
- Gender (source)
- male
- Armed status (source)
- knife
- Flee status (source)
- not
- Agency IDs (source)
- 1248
Sources & records
- Primary source
- Additional source
- Methodology and national police killings trackingMapping Police Violence · Dataset/methodology
- Fatal Force v2 — fatal on-duty police shootings, 2015–2024The Washington Post · Dataset