Premium Only Content

Sparks police body camera footage shows fatal shooting of man who injured son with knife
Sparks police fatally shot 59-year-old Francisco Pena on Aug. 22 in an apartment complex on Market Street.
Deputy Chief Tara Edmonson said that police were responding to a call from a woman who said Pena, her estranged husband, was threatening her and her sons with a knife.
Sparks released the body camera footage and dispatch calls on Thursday.
“He has a knife, and my younger son is asleep, and my 18-year-old son is trying to take it away from him,” the woman told 911 dispatchers.
She said that her older son was injured and still in the apartment with her husband, while she fled to a neighbor’s home to call police.
Body camera footage shows Sparks police running up a narrow staircase toward an open apartment door where Pena stands holding a small utility knife next to his older son.
Police yelled at Pena to show his hands and drop the knife before they fired three shots, striking him in the chest.
After he was shot, Pena can be heard yelling, “I hate you guys. I can’t believe you all. I can’t believe you all. … F--- you.”
Police ushered the son out of the building, then cleared the apartment and attempted to deliver medical aid until paramedics arrived.
One officer can be heard saying, “I don’t know how to check for a pulse.”
Another officer grabs a kitchen towel and has a second officer begin CPR compressions with the towel covering Pena’s chest.
Pena was later pronounced dead at the hospital.
In a critical incident briefing video, Edmonson explained the officers’ justification for shooting Pena.
“Due to the close proximity of (Pena) to his injured son, the officers, and his refusal to drop the knife, (officers) believed he presented an imminent and immediate threat of death or serious bodily harm,” she said.
Later in the investigation, Sparks police said they found Pena had also brought a semiautomatic rifle to the apartment.
The wife told dispatch that she had been out of town and Pena was in the home when she returned.
“I just got home and he attacked me,” she said. “He is my estranged husband. He just came over. He doesn’t live with me for three years.”
Washoe County is conducting an investigation on the incident.
-
LIVE
sophiesnazz
4 hours agoLETS TALK ABOUT BO7 !socials !specs
35 watching -
1:27:30
Redacted News
3 hours ago"There will be consequences!!!" Trump issues big threat to Putin ahead of peace summit | Redacted
74.1K112 -
LIVE
Amish Zaku
1 hour agoWar Thunder - Tank Tuesday
63 watching -
1:27:05
Kim Iversen
3 hours agoIsrael DEMANDS X Remove Posts and X COMPLIES | Socialist Groceries Coming To A Store Near You!
23.6K52 -
1:11:53
vivafrei
10 hours agoThe Great Replacement of American Truckers With Unskilled Foreign Labor - Live with Gord Magill
84.2K62 -
1:05:13
Sarah Westall
3 hours agoEU Falling, United States Barely Hanging on - Strength and Courage Needed to Fight for Free Speech
27.5K3 -
LIVE
LFA TV
12 hours agoLFA TV ALL DAY STREAM - TUESDAY 8/19/25
890 watching -
2:11:18
The Quartering
5 hours agoToday's Breaking News! Disgusting Grocery Shopping "Haul" Goes Viral, Las Vegas Collapse & More
100K33 -
DVR
StoneMountain64
6 hours agoBest Extraction shooter is FINALLY on Console (+CoD Reveal Today)
53.7K -
3:04:51
Due Dissidence
8 hours agoZelensky RETURNS To DC, HUGE Protests In Israel, Gal Gadot Blames Palestine For Flop, MSNBC Rebrands
44.7K21