Ricardo Alfonso Cerna: Traffic Stop, Missed Gun, and Suicide

Ricardo Alfonso Cerna was a 47-year-old man with a long narcotics record who, on December 19, 2003, shot San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Deputy Michael Parham during a traffic stop in Muscoy, California, and then killed himself with a concealed .45-caliber handgun inside a sheriff’s interview room after deputies failed to search him. The case became notorious because the loaded pistol traveled with him through arrest, transport, and interrogation undetected, and because the surveillance video of the suicide later leaked and circulated online.

The Traffic Stop and Shooting

Around 9:30 a.m. on December 19, 2003, Deputy Parham, a six-year veteran of the Sheriff’s Department, tried to pull Cerna over for a traffic violation on West Adams Street near San Bernardino.¹ Cerna refused to stop. The brief chase ended in the 2300 block of California Street when he struck a curb and flattened his tires.

As Cerna got out of the car, he opened fire with a .45-caliber handgun, hitting Parham’s windshield and hood and continuing to shoot as he ran past the deputy. At least two rounds struck Parham. One penetrated his abdomen; another glanced off his bulletproof vest.¹ Parham was taken to Loma Linda University Medical Center, underwent surgery, and was listed in critical but stable condition in the ICU.² He survived.

How the Gun Was Missed

San Bernardino police officers apprehended Cerna after the shooting. Custody was then handed over to the Sheriff’s Department. Deputies swapped out the handcuffs and placed Cerna in a sergeant’s car for transport to sheriff’s headquarters on Third Street, arriving just before 11:00 a.m.³⁴

No one conducted a thorough search of him at any point. The deputies who took custody appeared to assume the arresting officers had already done it. Sheriff’s Sgt. David Caddel later confirmed that none of the deputies searched Cerna themselves.⁵ Throughout the arrest and transport, the loaded .45-caliber handgun sat in his front pants pocket.²

Sheriff Gary Penrod later attributed the lapse to confusion among the three agencies involved: the California Highway Patrol, San Bernardino police, and the Sheriff’s Department, with each receiving officer apparently assuming someone earlier in the chain had searched him properly.⁴

The Suicide in the Interview Room

At headquarters, Cerna was placed in an interview room, and Sgt. Bobby Dean, head of the department’s homicide unit, began questioning him. Investigators described the exchanges as brief and polite. At some point Cerna’s handcuffs were removed, and he was uncuffed for roughly ten minutes.³ A second investigator was in the room with Dean for part of the interview.

When Dean stepped out briefly to speak with a detective in the hallway, Cerna drew the concealed pistol and shot himself in the head.² He was pronounced dead at the scene. Two bullets remained in the gun.³ The interview room’s surveillance camera captured the shooting.⁵

Why He Did It

Cerna had an extensive record. Sheriff Penrod said he had a long history of narcotics violations and jail time and used ten known aliases. Authorities described the shooting of Parham as a potential third-strike felony, which would have carried a mandatory sentence of 25 years to life under California’s Three Strikes law.³ That exposure was widely understood as Cerna’s motive for both the shooting and the suicide. The specific prior felonies making up his first two strikes were not publicly detailed.

Investigation and Discipline

Penrod publicly took responsibility. “I’m not going to shun responsibility here. We should’ve done a pat-down on him before transporting him, one that was good enough to find that gun,” he said, noting that with two rounds still in the weapon Cerna “could have shot additional officers.”³ Sheriff’s spokesman Rick Carr called it “obviously a large mistake” but “not a defect in training,” citing high emotions after an officer was shot. Spokeswoman Cindy Beavers said pat-downs are standard procedure while strip searches are not, and the department did not know how thorough the initial search had been.¹

The Sheriff’s Department opened an internal affairs investigation. Penrod initially said the deputies involved would not be terminated or suspended, though he promised “appropriate action” once the inquiry finished.³ Officials later confirmed some officers involved were disciplined, but neither their identities nor the specific measures were made public.⁴ The San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office found no basis for criminal charges. “I don’t see any criminal laws broken. It was just a tragic set of events,” Assistant District Attorney Michael Risley said.¹

The Leaked Surveillance Video

Sheriff Penrod initially authorized release of the interview room footage to reporters shortly after the incident.¹ It was also approved for use in an officer safety presentation at the FBI’s training academy in Quantico, Virginia, after which dozens of copies were made at the request of law enforcement agencies around the country for training use.⁴

The video eventually leaked to the public, and the department said it did not know who was responsible. As it spread online, some viewers pointed to what they read as the interrogator’s flat reaction and the sheer improbability of the security lapse and claimed the department had executed Cerna or handed him the gun. Fact-checkers found those claims implausible and concluded the footage showed an authentic suicide following a procedural failure.⁴

What Happened to Deputy Parham

Parham recovered and returned to duty. He had joined the Sheriff’s Department in April 1998 and moved to patrol in April 2003.⁶

His career ended nearly a decade later under very different circumstances. In May 2012, deputies responded to a report of a man throwing bricks at a neighbor’s house. Prosecutors said that after 46-year-old Mario Madrigal was handcuffed and on the ground, Parham kicked him in the ribs and groin and used his foot to push his face into the dirt. Parham was fired on November 9, 2012, and charged with misdemeanor assault under color of authority.⁶ In August 2014, a jury convicted him on two misdemeanor counts of assault and battery. He faced up to a year in county jail and a ten-year ban on possessing a firearm.⁷

1
Los Angeles Times. Deputy Shot, Suspect Kills Self
2
Deseret News. Motorist in Custody Commits Suicide
3
Los Angeles Times. Deputies Failed to Search Shooting Suspect
4
Snopes. The Last Interrogation
5
Press Democrat. Deputies Face Discipline Over Hidden Handgun
6
San Bernardino Sun. San Bernardino Sheriff’s Deputy Accused of Assault Fired
7
San Bernardino Sun. Fired San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Deputy Convicted of Misdemeanor Assault and Battery