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SAN DIEGO (FOX 5/KUSI) — A San Diego police officer took the witness stand Tuesday, two years after he was shot in the arm while chasing a suspect in Chollas Creek.
Officer James Romero testified just feet away from the man who is standing trial for allegedly shooting him.
Romero’s body camera footage was played in court, showing the tense moments after the shooting.
“Hey, come help me,” Romero said to another officer responding to the scene after the shooting.
Romero was trying to put a tourniquet on his own bloody arm. Sirens can be heard from emergency vehicles racing toward him in the distance.
“I’m going to stick with you just relax, alright,” a Sheriff who responded to the scene told Romero.
Two years after that shooting, Romero took the stand.
32-year-old JC Blake Sartor is accused of shooting Romero on June 8, 2023 in Chollas Creek. Romero testified that he saw the driver of a whit truck acting and looking suspicious.
Romero said he noticed the driver inside the truck was looking suspiciously at an embankment on University Avenue, which the officer said nothing was at the embankment in the road, and he believed this was suspicious behavior.
Romero said he started following the truck during several turns, and caught up to the vehicle so he could read the plate at Knoxie and Ogden streets.
When Romero put the license plate number into their database, it came back as a stolen vehicle, and notified dispatchers. Romero kept following the truck.
“The way the driver was going back and in circles, I thought he was planning something,” Romero added.
He said the short chase was at slower speeds of approximately 20 miles per hour. Romero said he turned on his police lights, and the vehicle stopped at Ogden and Wightman.
Romero said he saw the driver fidgeting, hit a parked car and then the driver got out and ran through the apartment complex. Romero said when the driver got out of the car, he looked at him and ran. Romero noticed he was wearing a mask, covering his mouth.
As Sartor ran off, Romero chased after him, but did not have his gun drawn. Sartor fired two shots at Romero, one of the gunshots hit Romero in the right arm.
“The pain in the hospital was pretty excruciating,” Romero said on the stand testifying in court on Tuesday morning. “I couldn’t bend it at all, it was super swollen, I had to go to physical therapy twice a week, see a doctor about every other week.
He said his right arm still gets numb and he still gets nerve shocks to his arm.
Romero was out of work for three months, and had to relearn how to do daily tasks. “It impacted everything, eating, writing, showering I had to figure out a way to do it,” Romero added.
Romero went back to work about 3-4 months after being shot, but the physical and mental effects from that day, still linger.
“I would have nightmares, couldn’t sleep, kept on revisiting the scene, thinking I was dying, hyperventilating, anxious, and that was extremely severe for the first week,” Romero said. “Intrusive thoughts I had to deal with that for a couple months… slowly calmed myself down with my therapist and my family.”
At the time of the shooting, Romero was assigned to the Mid-City division and had just been put on the police force in December 2022. About six months later, in June 2023, the shooting happened.
Prior to becoming a police officer, Romero worked as a mental health worker in the juvenile wing of Aurora Behavioral Health Care Center. He had also worked as a social worker where he responded to allegations of abuse, and was previously a probation officer for two and a half years.
If convicted on all charges, Sartor faces life in prison.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)
