Describing how they saw a man with a knife being held at gunpoint — by what they wrongly believed were law-enforcement agents — two Palm Springs police officers spoke publicly Friday for the first time about the chaotic standoff that led to the man’s death.

The killing of David Spann led to murder charges against two people.

The officers testified Friday at a court hearing in Indio for one of them, Lisa Roberta Vargas, 56. Her son and fellow defendant, Fabian Hector Herrera, shot and killed Spann on April 23, 2001, on the second floor of his condo on Via Escuela in Palm Springs. Herrera had been sent to arrest the man by a bail agent.

Neither was legally permitted to do bounty hunter work, and Herrera was barred from possessing a firearm due to a prior felony conviction. Vargas is accused of buying him the weapon he used that night.

But the police officers who showed up shortly before the shooting knew none of that, they testified Friday.

Herrera and Spann had both separately called the Palm Springs Police Department reporting they were in a confrontation. The department sent two police officers into the bedlam, and moments later Herrera shot and killed Spann after one of the officers failed to incapacitate him with a Taser.

During several hours of tense questioning, the two officers, Rhett Arden and Emmi Kramer, reiterated points their department has previously made: They believed the two bounty hunters were cops and there wasn’t time enough to check credentials before the situation escalated.

They added that the dress and badge of Herrera, his Ford Crown Victoria and “Agent” emblazoned on the back of a ballistic vest all sustained the ruse that he was in fact a cop in need of backup — a deadly misunderstanding they would only later learn of.

“It was hard to decipher who was saying what to who, we were just responding to a call for service,” Arden said. “There was a lot going on, and you’re trying to make quick decisions, and the right decisions.”

“I didn’t know who this fugitive task force was, I would assume someone with credentials,” Kramer said.

Defense attorney Lori Myers called the two officers to the stand during a hearing to determine if there is enough evidence for Vargas’ case to go to trial. Myers and her co-counsel repeatedly asked the two why they thought the two bounty hunters were police, and proceeded to back them up in the tense moments leading to the fatal shooting rather than remove them from the house.

Both officers said their dispatch had informed them a “fugitive task force was serving a domestic violence warrant at the address,” in Arden’s words.

Herrera had, in fact, called the department earlier that night and told them he would be attempting to arrest Spann. It’s unclear if dispatch knew Herrera was a bounty hunter and not a sworn officer when the call for service was broadcast. There was no active warrant for Spann’s arrest at the time. The officers repeatedly said on the stand that they believed Herrera and Vargas were cops when they arrived at the scene and stepped through a shattered front door with guns drawn.

Kramer, who was at the bottom of the stairs during the confrontation, and couldn’t directly see Spann, said she believed Arden was attempting to calm the situation down. “A Taser is de-escalation,” she testified.

But any attempts at de-escalation were ineffective at stopping Spann or getting him to drop the knife. And the officers added their misperception that Herrera’s “partner” was in a room on the second floor near Spann only heightened the situation.

“Did you ask if they were police officers?” Myers asked

“I don’t think we had time,” Kramer responded.

“I was going to assist a fellow law enforcement officer in what they are dealing with,” Arden later said of his mindset, adding: “My whole thought process was de-escalation.”

“The the fact that Herrera, who you believed was a law enforcement officer, was telling you that his partner who is also a law enforcement officer is upstairs, did that impact the way you handled the situation?” asked Deputy District Attorney Patrick Farrell.

“Absolutely,” Arden responded.

Arden repeatedly told Spann to drop the knife. Spann repeatedly told all of them to get out of his home, and proceeded to ask questions indicating that he did not believe they had the authority to be there.

Myers asked both officers Friday about how they interpreted Spann’s statements, captured on body camera, that he did not believe they were police and apparently mockingly suggesting they were going to shoot him “with ketchup.”

Both officers said they did not recall Spann’s statements and if they had heard them clearly in the moment, wouldn’t have known what to make of them. Myers suggested the video shows Spann appears to be the only one questioning Herrera’s authority during the tense confrontation.

When it came to arguably most consequential words uttered in the last moments of David Spann’s life, both officers said they had little or no recollection of what exactly happened.

Soon before Arden shot Spann with a Taser, he asked Herrera if he had “lethal,” meaning that if the Taser failed he had a gun drawn and ready to fire. When the Taser failed, and Spann stepped toward the bounty hunter and the officer, Arden can be heard on body camera saying: “Drop it. Shoot.”

When asked what he meant by that, Arden said on the stand: “I don’t recall,” adding, “I don’t recall saying those words.”

He was repeatedly asked to clarify what he meant, with Farrell again asking if he had an independent recollection of of what he meant by those words. “I do not,” Arden answered.

But soon after Spann’s death, Arden told a sheriff’s investigator he’d said “Shoot” not as a command to use lethal force, but to express frustration that his Taser hadn’t incapacitated Spann. The account came to light when the investigator testified in a 2021 court hearing.

Regardless of what Arden meant, Herrera immediately fired the lethal shots and Spann died in the landing of his condo minutes later.

Riverside County Superior Court Judge Anthony Villalobos asked Arden if it was common to help bounty hunters apprehend fugitives. Arden said no, but added that he does help officers to apprehend fugitives. Villalobos then asked if it was normal for police to be arresting a fugitive around 2 a.m.

“It would be rare for a law enforcement agency to do that without an actual warrant,” Arden said.

Evidence presented during Vargas’ hearing, which has happened on and off over several months, shows she bought a Glock 19 handgun from a gun shop in Colton in January 2021, and texted her son, Herrera, that doing so could put her in jail.

There were more firearms found in the black Ford Crown Victoria that Herrera drove to the scene. Riverside County sheriff’s Investigator Nicholas Jones earlier testified he found three handguns, a paintball gun that looked like a real firearm and a substantial amount of ammunition in Herrera’s trunk.

Herrera was sent by Melissa Lippert, Spann’s bail agent, to detain him after she said he had violated his terms of bail. Lippert said during a subsequent hearing, in which she successfully argued to keep her bail agent license despite the killing, that she had asked another bail agent, Jose Navarro, to send a certified bail fugitive recovery agent to make the arrest. Herrera had recently begun working with Navarro as a bail recovery agent, popularly known as a bounty hunter, and was sent.

Spann had been released on bail and was required, according to his bail agreement, to wear an electronic monitoring device. Lippert said Spann was not keeping the device on and wasn’t complying with other conditions of their agreement. Spann did not have any active arrest warrants issued by a judge at the time of his death.

Herrera drove to Spann’s home late on an April night in 2021. He had notified the Palm Springs Police Department that he was going to attempt to detain Spann. Recordings of those calls have never been played during a public court hearing.

Security footage played in several court hearings shows Herrera attempt to kick in Spann’s front door then go retrieve a sledgehammer and smash the door before entering the condo.

Within minutes, both Herrera and Spann separately called police. Herrera is said to have asked for help. Spann is said to have reported the break-in.

In the chaotic moments after the shooting, police struggled to both identify Herrera and Vargas and make sense of what they were doing at the scene, body cam footage obtained by The Desert Sun shows. It wasn’t until the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department took over the investigation the following morning that Herrera was found to be a felon and not a licensed bail agent.

It was announced soon after that Herrera would be charged with murder for the shooting. Vargas, meanwhile, was at large for about a month before being arrested in Whittier that May. Both have been incarcerated since.

Christopher Damien covers public safety and the criminal justice system. He can be reached at christopher.damien@desertsun.com or follow him at @chris_a_damien.

This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Palm Springs officers describe seeing bounty hunter shoot man to death