Sacramento police shot and wounded a man armed with a kitchen knife Tuesday evening after he advanced toward officers who were responding to reports of a person with a weapon at Hazel Strauch Elementary School in the city’s Northgate neighborhood.
The shooting occurred shortly before 7 p.m. in the 3100 block of Northstead Drive, according to the Sacramento Police Department and Sacramento Fire Department dispatch records.
Sgt. Justin Boyd, a spokesperson for the department, told reporters that officers responded to a 911 call about a man with a knife about 6:45 p.m. Police said in a later update that “the caller reported a male adult armed with a knife chasing another male adult at a school campus.”
Police said officers who arrived located the man “in front of the school” and gave him “multiple commands” to comply. A spokesperson for the Twin Rivers Unified School District, where a teachers strike affecting about 25,000 students began Monday and a school board meeting was underway Tuesday night, did not respond to a request for comment.
A photo provided by the Police Department showed the weapon officers said the man brandished: an off-brand 7.5-inch kitchen chef’s knife.
A kitchen chef’s knife that officers say a man used on them before being shot by officers on Tuesday, March 11, 2025, outside an elementary school in the Northgate section of Sacramento. The Sacramento Police Department said one of its officers fired on the man, who was hospitalized. Sacramento Police Department
During the exchange, the man “refused to drop the knife, continued to advance toward officers and an officer-involved shooting occurred,” according to police. “One officer fired their firearm, and the suspect was struck at least one time.”
Boyd said the wounded man, described only as an adult, was hospitalized and was in “stable” condition. No officers were injured in the incident, he said.
Police said that “a less lethal device was also deployed” during the shooting, but did not elaborate. That was one part of the incident under review, Boyd told reporters when asked about Taser guns and other less-lethal uses of force.
“Obviously, every investigation, every incident is different but that is part of the investigation,” he said. “That’s part of the process that they go through as they look deeper into this incident.”
Police said the man was arrested and would be booked into Sacramento County Main Jail once he is healthy enough to be discharged from the hospital.
This was the second officer-involved shooting for the department this year.
The first officer-involved shooting happened on Jan. 29, when officers fatally shot Andrew Anthony Baima, 56, on the sidewalk of Exposition Boulevard outside Cal Expo.
Police said Baima had robbed a BMO bank branch before running from officers and pointing what appeared to be a handgun at them. Investigators later determined the weapon was an imitation firearm.
As is standard with officer-involved shootings, Boyd said Tuesday’s incident would investigated by the Police Department’s homicide unit, Internal Affairs Division and Professional Standards Unit; the agency’s Force Investigation Team will conduct a separate examination for policy, tactics and training related to the use of force, the agency said .
As with other officer-involved shootings, the Sacramento County District Attorney’s Office and the city’s Office of Public Safety Accountability will monitor the investigation.
Video and audio from the incident would be provided in the next 30 days, in compliance with SB 1421, the department said.
This story was originally published March 10, 2026 at 7:41 PM.
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Daniel Hunt is a local news editor for The Sacramento Bee; he joined the newspaper in 2013.