The death of a man shot by police in Bird Rock came after he went through years of mental health-related issues, homelessness and run-ins with the law, according to his grandmother.

Susan Klat told the La Jolla Light that Dejon Heard, 25, “had a history of mental health struggles.”

“There were times he would have anxiety attacks … and he would get in his own head and would have his moments,” she said. “It’s heartbreaking.”

Law enforcement and the San Diego County medical examiner’s office have not officially identified Heard as the man who was fatally shot by a San Diego police officer just before 7 a.m. July 6 after the Police Department received multiple calls about a man with a knife causing a disturbance on the street in the 5400 block of La Jolla Boulevard, at the Midway Street roundabout.

Officers provided medical aid and paramedics took the man to a hospital, where he died. No officers were injured in the confrontation, authorities said.

As is protocol with police shootings involving San Diego officers, the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department is investigating the case.

The Sheriff’s Department said in a statement that San Diego police officers arrived and saw the man next to a vehicle stopped on the road. As officers approached, he walked toward them with a knife, according to the statement and a witness, James Rudolph, who described the confrontation to the Light.

“The man was standing in the street, screaming and gesticulating,” Rudolph said.

The man ignored the officers’ commands to put down the knife and continued moving “in a menacing manner,” Rudolph said. “As he got closer, [an] officer fired — if I remember correctly — three shots in rapid succession.”

A local resident posted on social media that she heard the shooting and that it sounded like “pop pop pop.”

Another resident posted that she saw a man sitting in a car at the roundabout at about 6:30 a.m. blocking the road and then got out and began “pulling things out of his trunk and changing his pants, ranting and raving.”

The officer involved in the shooting, who has not been identified, has been employed by the San Diego Police Department for three years and is assigned to SDPD’s Northern Division, which includes La Jolla.

Klat told the Light that Heard had been in foster care since his teens and that she had been his primary source of financial support. In recent years, she said, Heard tried to attend college in Arizona and start to attain independent living, but with little success.

When he returned to San Diego, he went to the Douglas Young Wellness Recovery Center and the Catalyst treatment program for services, Klat said. Both receive funding from the county.

Neither would comment for this article.

Klat said Heard was unable to stay with the programs and was repeatedly admitted to area hospitals on what is known as “5150” holds, during which adults experiencing a mental health crisis are hospitalized for 72 hours to be evaluated as a possible threat to themselves or others.

After each incident, he was discharged to Klat’s care, she said.

Klat said Heard was living in his car at the time of his death.

“His friends would often offer him a couch to sleep on, but he would rather sleep in his car because he never wanted to inconvenience anyone,” Klat said. “He was a generous, loving, soft kid.”

However, in 2019, Heard was arrested on allegations of stabbing another man and spent seven months in jail.

The incident, Klat said, “put him over the edge” and exacerbated his mental health struggles.

“The arrest and time in jail scared him, but he wasn’t cognitively there to understand what was happening,” Klat said. “He filed a complaint and said the police were harassing him, but he felt like no one was listening to him. They would shame him. He struggled so deeply from that event.”

As a result, she said, Heard developed a fear of police officers, which led her to question the reports that he walked toward officers with a knife.

“He never would have taken a knife to police, even in his worst moments,” Klat said. “There is no way he could have done what they are saying he did.”

The San Diego Police Department has licensed psychiatric emergency response team clinicians assigned to patrol units to help with calls that appear to involve mental health crises, according to the city.

“PERT clinicians are able to assist police officers in interacting and identifying resources to aid those with behavioral health issues and may pose a threat to themselves or others,” the city says. “This partnership allows for the officer to ensure the situation is safe for the PERT clinician to then begin their assessment of the individual.”

The Police Department did not respond to the Light’s inquiries as to whether a PERT clinician was on hand during the Bird Rock incident and tried to communicate with Heard before he was shot.

Klat said Heard’s family plans to set up a GoFundMe account to cover expenses of a funeral and an additional autopsy. ♦