The family of a man shot to death by at least one San Bernardino County sheriff’s deputy has filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against the county and Sheriff Shannon Dicus, accusing the agency of killing 52-year-old Keith Vinyard at the end of a pursuit even though he was not armed.
At about 9:50 p.m. on March 23, a deputy tried to pull over Vinyard, who was wanted in a domestic-violence case, the Sheriff’s Department said. Instead, he sped away, driving recklessly, the agency said, before crashing in the 15400 block of Halinor Street in Hesperia.
He then refused to comply with the deputy’s commands and threatened to shoot, the Sheriff’s Department said that day, arming himself with a “large metal object” as more deputies arrived, with at least one deputy at some point fatally shooting him.
“That report was untrue,” says the lawsuit filed July 15 by attorney Bradley Gage. “Mr. Vinyard was not threatening the officers at all. He was not holding any such object and he did not leave his car before being shot multiple times.”
Gage, in an email, said witnesses told him that Vinyard was not armed.
“This lawsuit seeks justice for Keith and the family that loved him, and misses him,” the lawsuit says.
The state Attorney General’s Office is examining the circumstances, because a state law requires it to investigate fatal shootings by law enforcement of unarmed civilians.
That office defines unarmed civilian as “anyone who is not in possession of a deadly weapon.” A deadly weapon can be, among other things, an iron bar, the AG’s Office website says.
The Sheriff’s Department declined to comment on the lawsuit or its account of the shooting.
The lawsuit’s plaintiffs are Vinyard’s wife, Tiffany Shernaman-Vinyard, and Keith Vinyard’s four sons and one daughter. The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages.
Shernaman-Vinyard filed for divorce from Vinyard on July 26, 2023, according to Superior Court records. The divorce was never finalized, Gage said in an email.
In 2017, Keith Vinyard pleaded no contest to a felony count of attempted stalking and was sentenced to one year and four months in state prison. A charge of assault with a deadly weapon was dropped.
In January 2024, Vinyard pleaded guilty to misdemeanor vandalism and was sentenced to one year of probation.
