OAKLAND — Steven Carrillo, the ex-U.S. Air Force Staff Sergeant accused of murdering law enforcement officers in separate incidents in Oakland and Ben Lomond, is set to plead guilty in the killing of a federal security officer on Friday, court records show.
Carrillo, 33, faces federal charges of murdering Federal Protective Services Officer Dave Patrick Underwood in a May 2020 downtown Oakland drive-by shooting, and state charges of murdering Santa Cruz Sheriff Sgt. Damon Gutzwiller in an ambush on Carrillo’s remote Ben Lomond property a week later. Prosecutors have tied him to a militia tied to the so-called Boogaloo Boys, an anti-government movement that believes a second Civil War is looming.
Carrillo’s attorney didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
News of Carrillo’s change-of-plea comes just a week after federal prosecutors agreed to take the death penalty off the table in Underwood’s killing. It’s unclear what sentence prosecutors will seek, but they typically agree to seek sentences within a specified range when a defendant decides to plead guilty.
Carrillo allegedly opened fire on Underwood and his partner, who were working a night shift at the Ron Dellums Federal Building in downtown Oakland on the night of May 29, 2020. His motive was simply to murder law enforcement officers, according to the FBI.
The alleged driver, a Boogaloo-associated Bay Area man named Robert Alvin Justus, also faces federal charges of murdering Gutzwiller.
According to court records, Carrillo was in frequent communication with other members of the Boogaloo movement around the United States both before and after the killing. They communicated on Facebook groups and messaging apps, and Carrillo bragged about the homicide, telling a Texas resident who encouraged him to shoot up police buildings, “I did better lol,” prosecutors say.
He also met with and trained with members of a Boogaloo militia known as the Grizzly scouts, whose leader and three other members were hit with federal charges in the wake of Carrillo’s arrest. On Feb. 22, they are set to plead guilty to destroying evidence of their communications with Carrillo after he allegedly ambushed and murdered Gutzwiller, in a shooting that wounded three other officers. One of the four also faces child exploitation charges for inappropriate communications with a teen girl.
Members of the Grizzly Scouts allegedly plotted violence against police, including “Cartel-style” attacks, kidnapping law enforcement and treating them as “prisoners of war,” and impersonating members of Antifa to start violence at protests. Carrillo also discussed wanting to use the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police to instigate anti-police violence, and met with another Grizzly Scouts member just three days before carrying out the Underwood assassination, prosecutors say.
Carrillo waived his right to a preliminary hearing in Santa Cruz County on the Gutzwiller murder charge and is awaiting trial.
