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Victor Richard Carevic

Age : 42

Gender : Male

Race : White

Date : 08/15/2021

Location : 957 Armory Road, near Monterey Avenue

City : Barstow

County : San Bernardino

State : California

Agency : Barstow Police Department

Officer(s) :Steven Rodriguez; Andrew Buesa

Cause of Death : Gunshot

Event : Killed by police during foot pursuit after stolen-vehicle investigation

OPEN RECORDS SUMMARY :

On 08/15/2021, Barstow Police Department Officer Steven Rodriguez and Corporal Andrew Buesa shot and killed 42-year-old Victor Richard Carevic following a police encounter that developed into a foot pursuit from a residential neighborhood to a shopping center near Armory Road and Monterey Avenue. A detailed 28-page San Bernardino County District Attorney review released in February 2025 provides body-camera, surveillance-video, ballistic, autopsy and witness evidence that was unavailable in the initial 2021 reporting.
The encounter began several hours earlier after the Chrysler 300 in which Carevic and his girlfriend were traveling ran out of gas in the 1000 block of Mirage Drive. Carevic left on foot to get gas while his girlfriend remained with the vehicle. A resident reported the vehicle to police as suspicious.
Rodriguez arrived at approximately 7:46 a.m. and discovered that the license plate did not correspond with the Chrysler's vehicle identification number. After checking the VIN, police determined that the Chrysler had been reported stolen in Arizona. Police arrested Carevic's girlfriend and impounded the car. Officers found BB guns, ammunition and other items inside.
Carevic returned to the neighborhood several hours later looking for his girlfriend, dog and vehicle. A resident saw him pushing a shopping cart and contacted police. At approximately 11:08 a.m., Rodriguez returned and approached Carevic on Candlelight Street near Monterey Avenue. Rodriguez's body-worn camera recorded the encounter.
Carevic told Rodriguez he was looking for his car and said his identification had been inside it. Rodriguez asked Carevic to walk to his patrol vehicle. The body-camera recording shows Carevic initially agreeing but then remaining near the shopping cart. Rodriguez told Carevic to put his hands behind his back, drew his handgun and informed him that the Chrysler was stolen. Carevic responded that he had done nothing.
Rodriguez subsequently holstered his gun. When Carevic asked whether he was being detained, Rodriguez told him that he was. Carevic pushed the shopping cart toward Rodriguez and ran east on Candlelight Street before turning north on Monterey Avenue. Rodriguez pursued him on foot.
During the pursuit, Rodriguez repeatedly ordered Carevic to stop and told him to stop reaching into his pockets. Rodriguez's body-camera recording shows Carevic remove a small black handgun from his pocket and, approximately one second later, turn and point it toward Rodriguez.
Rodriguez moved sideways while drawing his own handgun, tripped and fell onto his left side. While on the ground, he fired 12 rounds toward Carevic. The fall temporarily interrupted the video portion of his body camera, but its audio continued and recorded the 12 shots. Investigators later recovered 12 .40-caliber cartridge casings and documented seven bullet impacts in a nearby block wall.
Carevic continued running toward Armory Road and the Stater Bros. shopping center while Rodriguez followed. Buesa, responding as a backup officer, arrived in a marked police vehicle. Buesa had not known Carevic was armed when he initially approached the area but learned that information as he entered the shopping-center parking lot.
Carevic ran beneath the awning of a strip mall and attempted to open the locked door of a Metro PCS store. According to Buesa and video evidence reviewed by prosecutors, Carevic then extended the handgun in Buesa's direction while Buesa was still near his patrol vehicle.
Rodriguez stopped near the north curb of Armory Road and fired two additional rounds. Carevic fell outside the businesses.
Buesa approached with his handgun drawn. According to Buesa, Carevic reached for the handgun lying beside him despite commands not to touch it, picked it up and began moving it toward Buesa. Surveillance footage from the shopping center captured Carevic holding the gun while on the ground. Buesa fired one round. Almost simultaneously, Rodriguez fired one additional round.
Rodriguez therefore fired 15 rounds during the encounter: 12 during the initial confrontation on Monterey Avenue, two near Armory Road and one final shot after Carevic had fallen. Buesa fired one round.
After the final shots, Buesa kicked Carevic's handgun away. Rodriguez called for medical assistance, Buesa retrieved medical supplies, and the officers attempted to control Carevic's bleeding and performed chest compressions. Paramedics arrived approximately five minutes later and continued treatment. Carevic was pronounced dead at 11:24 a.m.
Investigators recovered a Phoenix Arms .22-caliber semiautomatic pistol beside Carevic. Examination revealed that the weapon was badly damaged: the barrel was detached from the lower receiver and slide, and the slide was only partially attached. A live round remained in the chamber and five live cartridges were in the magazine.
The physical condition of the handgun became significant because Rodriguez initially believed Carevic may have fired at him. Investigators found no evidence establishing that the .22-caliber pistol successfully discharged during the encounter. The District Attorney ultimately acknowledged that Carevic most likely did not fire the weapon, while theorizing that he may have attempted to fire it but could not because the gun malfunctioned. No determination that Carevic actually pulled the trigger was established by the physical evidence.
The autopsy documented four conventional gunshot wounds and two ricochet wounds. Carevic suffered gunshot wounds to the abdomen, right thigh, left forearm and left thigh, along with two ricochet injuries to the left ankle. The abdominal wound perforated his liver, diaphragm and right lung and was fatal. The right-thigh wound severed a branch of the femoral artery and was also fatal. The medical examiner classified the death as homicide.
The autopsy findings also establish that some bullets entered Carevic from behind. The right-thigh wound traveled from back to front, as did the left-thigh wound. The left-forearm wound entered through the posterior forearm. The abdominal wound traveled front to back. These trajectories are consistent with gunfire occurring at different stages of the running confrontation.
Rodriguez's body camera provided substantial independent evidence of the encounter, including Carevic pointing the handgun toward Rodriguez and later extending it toward Buesa's location. Shopping-center surveillance video documented portions of the final confrontation after Carevic fell. Buesa's body camera was not activated until after Carevic had been incapacitated.
The San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department investigated the killing under report DR# 602100157. The District Attorney's review examined investigative reports, photographs, officer and witness interviews, audio, Rodriguez's body-camera recording, surveillance recordings, firearm evidence, ballistics and the autopsy.
The prosecutorial review was not publicly released until February 2025, approximately three and a half years after Carevic was killed. The District Attorney concluded that Rodriguez's three separate episodes of gunfire and Buesa's single shot were legally justified as self-defense or defense of others. Neither officer was criminally charged.
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OFFICER BACKGROUND:
Steven Rodriguez was a Barstow Police Department patrol officer when he killed Carevic. Rodriguez initiated the encounter, pursued Carevic on foot and fired 15 rounds during three separate stages of the confrontation. His body camera was activated before his contact with Carevic and provided the principal video record of the shooting. Later Barstow records show Rodriguez remaining with the department and working as a detective.A search for other reliably documented fatal or nonfatal police shootings, substantiated serious misconduct, discipline or excessive-force judgments involving Rodriguez did not identify another comparable incident.
Andrew Buesa had a substantially more significant documented history. Before joining Barstow police, Buesa worked for the Los Angeles Police Department and was discharged in connection with misconduct arising from a 2002 arrest.
Buesa was also directly involved in the 2018 fatal Barstow police shooting of Leonard Angelo Sanchez at the Sands Motel. Police responded after Sanchez's family sought help while he was experiencing a mental-health crisis and holding two kitchen knives. Buesa deployed a Taser while Officer William Spiller fired the fatal gunshots. Sanchez's family sued the City of Barstow and the officers, alleging excessive force. Barstow ultimately paid approximately $1.3 million to settle the litigation. Buesa did not fire the fatal bullets in the Sanchez case, but he was one of the two officers directly confronting Sanchez when police used force.
Buesa's history is therefore relevant beyond the Carevic shooting: he had previously been discharged from the LAPD over misconduct and had participated in another fatal Barstow police use-of-force encounter three years before Carevic's death.

SOURCE LINKS :

https://www.vvdailypress.com/story/news/2021/08/16/barstow-police-shooting-man-killed-identified/8151362002/
https://www.vvng.com/barstow-police-identify-man-killed-in-officer-involved-shooting/
https://www.sbsun.com/2021/08/16/man-shot-killed-by-barstow-police-identified/
https://www.vvdailypress.com/story/news/2021/08/15/barstow-police-officer-shoots-kills-man-sunday/8146882002/
https://da.sbcounty.gov/2025/02/20/officer-involved-shooting-fatal-barstow-r-carevic/
https://da.sbcounty.gov/wp-content/uploads/sites/120/2025/02/OIS-Carevic-Victor-FINAL-Redacted.pdf
https://www.yahoo.com/news/d-rules-two-police-officers-212934696.html
https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-barstow-police-shooting-20181129-story.html
https://steeringlaw.com/police-misconduct-blog/barstow-pays-1-3-million-dollars-for-police-shooting/