Feb 2024. Blues Vol 40 No. 2

NOT SO BRIGHT AWARD
Light Bulb Award
FAKED OFFICER SHOOTING
Ex-Santa Clara Deputy convicted of staging an
on-duty shooting of himself.
By Robert Salonga
Bay Area News Group
SAN JOSE, Calif. — A disgraced
former Santa Clara County
sheriff’s deputy has been convicted
in a bizarre case in which
authorities say he inexplicably
staged a fake on-duty shooting
of himself on a remote road near
the Uvas Reservoir four years
ago.
Sukhdeep Gill, 30, pleaded
no contest Tuesday — the day
his preliminary examination
was scheduled to start — after
agreeing to a court offer
to reduce his felony vandalism
charge to a misdemeanor,
according to the Santa Clara
County District Attorney’s Office,
which objected to the leniency.
As part of the court agreement,
Gill will have to perform
150 hours of community service,
pay unspecified restitution and
surrender his policing license to
the state Commission on Peace
Officer Standards and Training.
The latter requirement means he
will be barred from serving as a
police officer again in California.
Gill’s listed attorney did not
immediately respond to an email
seeking comment on the plea,
for which Gill was not required
to be present in court.
In the wake of the Jan. 31, 2020
drive-by shooting claim by Gill,
the sheriff’s office called the
incident an “unprovoked attack”
and that it was a “close call”
between life and death for the
then-deputy. But a year later,
the agency changed its tune and
said its investigation uncovered
significant factual inconsistencies
and no evidence of another
motorist being on the lightly
traveled Uvas Road at the time of
the purported shooting.
“I have gone to officers’ funerals
after they are shot,” District
Attorney Jeff Rosen said in a
statement Tuesday. “I hope to
never hear again about an officer
faking being shot. It’s outrageous,
diverts public resources,
and dishonors officers who put
their lives on the line to protect
us.”
According to the sheriff’s office
investigation, on the night of
the shooting report, Gill told his
supervisors and later detectives
that he was on patrol and pulled
over on the northbound side of
Uvas Road near Wallace Place,
just south of the reservoir parking
lot, so that he could urinate.
He reported that a vehicle approached,
the driver turned off
its headlights, and someone in
the vehicle fired four shots, with
132 The Blues - February ‘24