Santa Ana Cop Luis Casillas Killed Two People Within A Month, Allegedly Beat A Child During A Recent Arrest
Santa Ana police officer Luis Casillas killed Henry Gonzalez Jr. one month after killing Noe Rodriguez. Casillas is alleged to have participated in the beating of a child during an arrest.
Publisher’s note: The Santa Ana Police Department’s officer headshot photographs, names, badge numbers, payroll data are public record.
Within a month, Santa Ana Police Department (SAPD) officer Luis Casillas killed two people, one unarmed. In a recent third incident, Casillas is alleged to have taken part in the beating of a 15-year-old during an arrest, according to the child and his mother. The California Department of Justice (CA DOJ) is investigating the first incident, where officers Casillas and Isaac Ibarra killed Noe Rodriguez with a barrage of gunfire on December 1st, 2024. Rodriguez was unarmed.
On January 1st, 2025, Casillas killed again, shooting Henry Gonzalez Jr. who was holding his mother at knifepoint.
In the January shooting, Casillas and an unidentified SAPD officer approached the driveway where Gonzalez held his mother. According to edited body-worn camera footage published on SAPD’s youtube channel, Gonzalez’s mother repeatedly told officers that Gonzalez wanted to kill himself. As Casillas approached them at gunpoint, he repeatedly told Gonzalez to “let go of her” and that he was going to “get shot.”
According to SAPD, Casillas shot Gonzalez once in the head. He died on January 4th.
Police spokesperson Natalie Garcia stated in the video that officers also shot Gonzalez with a 40mm projectile after the headshot because Gonzalez was alive and still had the knife in his hand. The 40mm weapon is the same weapon used against protestors.
Garcia stated via email that both shooting incidents are under “active investigation” and that they are “limited in what [they] can share at this time to preserve the integrity of the review process.”
Garcia did not respond to a follow up question about whether it is typical for officers who are being investigated to remain on patrol. She also did not respond to a follow up question about a now-deleted video of a recent incident that involved the alleged beatdown of a 15 year-old that Casillas and an unidentified officer arrested.
Santa Ana city spokesperson Paul Eakins did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
Calls For Transparency And Accountability Grow
Casillas and Ibarra have become the focus of a community effort to hold the department accountable for its violent incidents. In recent months, statements calling for Casillas and Ibarra to be put on leave without pay have been circulated online, in-person and during council meeting public comments.
The Community Service Organization Orange County (CSO OC) has been on the forefront of this effort. They have organized protests calling for the jailing of Casillas and Ibarra. They have also utilized SAPD officer headshot photographs, released by SAPD through a public records request, to make sure community members know exactly who killed Rodriguez.
David Pulido, an organizer with CSO OC, stated via phone interview, “All of our demands and the direction that our struggle, our campaign takes is based on what the family wants.”
Pulido said via text later that their most recent demands are that Casillas and Ibarra be “fired from SAPD, and that the officers be jailed.”
Their efforts have not gone unnoticed by the city’s largest political player: the Santa Ana Police Officers Association (SAPOA) and its controversial president, John Kachirisky.
On May 27th, 2025, the SAPOA sent a letter to the mayor, city council and posted it on social media. The letter referred to a “so-called ‘community organization’” transparency and accountability efforts as “manufactured outrage”, despite people protesting in solidarity with the calls to hold Casillas and Ibarra accountable.
The letter goes on to refer to the use of public records — names, photos and badge numbers of the cops — as “troubling” and implies that all of that is “personal information.”
The letter also took issue with Council member Johnathan Hernandez referring to killer cops as “judge, jury and executioner” at a recent council meeting in May, calling the language “inflammatory.”
The SAPOA’s letter made no mention of the various gang-like paraphernalia distributed by members of the SAPD that contain skulls, grim reapers, swords and scythes. The gang-like paraphernalia is also distributed to people who show loyalty to the SAPD or SAPOA1. The now-disbanded Major Enforcement Team (MET) that operated like a gang within the department had members sharing skull tattoos with the group’s initials. MET members, including now-Commander Oscar Lizardi, sexually assaulted a child at a local restaurant in 2020. The incident, known as The Culichi Town Incident, was allegedly covered up by SAPD’s current chief, Robert Rodriguez, who was then head of the internal affairs division.
These issues have consistently appeared in court documents filed by attorneys representing current and former SAPD officers who have allegedly faced retaliation within the department.
The SAPOA did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
Via phone interview, Hernandez stated, “For a city like Santa Ana to allow for accountability to take place, I think step one is making sure that those who are being investigated are not working in the public.”
Via email, council member Jessie Lopez said, “This is all deeply concerning. Thank you for making me aware.”
All other council members and the mayor did not respond to various emails requesting comment.
Despite numerous completed investigations about the shooting of unarmed individuals, the CA DOJ has declined to hold any police officers criminally culpable since the start of its AB 1506 efforts. Despite the CA DOJ’s active investigation — that could open the door to criminal prosecution of Casillas and Ibarra — SAPD has kept them working in the public.
It is unclear what Casillas’ role was in the hospitalization of the 15-year-old child during the arrest. After Inadvertent began asking for body-worn camera footage of the early-June incident, which SAPD had already posted publicly on their instagram account, the post was deleted and the city has refused to answer questions about it.
Update 6/23 9:38 P.M.: This article has been updated to include a comment from Council member Jessie Lopez
Andres Aguilar, known locally as “Chonchis”, admitted he provides “support” after being asked about what he did to earn three challenge coins from the SAPOA during his time working at a nightclub. An instagram story he shared publicly displayed the coins with the caption “GETTING THINGS DONE.”