Jose Vaca Comes Up Short in Bid for Darwin Award

You have to die to win a Darwin Award, but California’s Jose Vaca still deserves honorable mention for trying his best:

In a jailhouse interview with Eyewitness News, the rifle-wielding man who was shot by a Bakersfield police officer said he intentionally approached the officers with a gun to test a “theory” he had about police brutality.

Jose Vaca, 29, had been driving down Oswell Street in east Bakersfield on Dec. 19 with a friend when he was pulled over by the officers.

Inside his car was a rifle he had recently bought at an auction, which he said he planned to sell. As a convicted felon, he said he knew it was illegal to have the gun, but he decided to bring it with him as he exited his vehicle.

Unsurprisingly, he was shot repeatedly.

As for the theory he was supposedly testing,

“I told my friend one day that I wanted her to believe all police officers are good,” he said, after his friend’s husband had been killed by police several months ago. …

“First thing that came to my mind is I’m already going to get pulled over. I know they’re most likely going to take me in, but I’m going to need to try my theory real quick and see that it’s true, so she can believe there is good officers in the world,” recounted Vaca.

Good officers are one thing. Officers who will let you approach them with a rifle after they have pulled you over are something different.

Vaca was being held on $400,000 bail. He was booked on 11 criminal counts, including possession of a firearm as a convicted felon and participating in a criminal street gang.

It is likely that the same taxpayers who are financing his incarceration picked up the tab for his medical treatment.

Better luck next time on that Darwin Award.

On a tip from Lyle.