San Bernardino County

CalTrans worker beaten, tased by Montclair police has died

The San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department is handling the investigation into his arrest and resulting death

Published

2 months ago

March 21, 2023

Montclair Hospital Medical Center (Screenshot/YouTube KABC 7)

MONTCLAIR, Calif. – 42-year-old Antonio Ibanez was on life support after Montclair police allegedly used batons striking him multiple times and then tased him on March 5. Ibanez, who was listed in critical condition after the beating, has died at Montclair Hospital Medical Center according to an attorney hired by Ibanez’s family.

According to a Montclair Police Department spokesperson, officers had responded to a 911 call at a mobile home park on the 4100 block of Mission Boulevard. Arriving officers were confronted by Ibanez who was allegedly threatening “the female victim caller who lived at the same location armed with an object.”

KTLA 5 reported that Ibanez’s family said that the CalTrans worker has struggled with drug addiction. He was renting a room and it was the homeowner who called the police with the intention of getting him some help after he didn’t open the door, they say.

“She called for assistance. There was no one in danger or domestic disturbance, simply a call for assistance,” said Christian Contreras, the attorney representing Ibanez’s family. “That begs the question as to, ‘Are police equipped to help people?’ They’re not; they’re equipped to brutalize people and use force.”

“You know he’s fighting for his life,” Rosendo Rojo Jr., Tony Ibanez’s brother told KTLA. “Eight officers using a baton, a taser – it wasn’t a disturbance. It wasn’t a violent call.”

Ibanez family members and Christian Contreras, their attorney, held a news conference on March 13, 2023, to call for justice and the release of police body camera footage.

The San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department is handling the investigation into Ibanez’s arrest and resulting death.

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San Bernardino County

San Bernardino County Sheriff’s investigators ask for public’s help

Elizabeth Schmidt said her son’s body was in an Apple Valley field, discovered on Oct. 17 by maintenance workers at a nearby daycare center

Published

5 months ago

December 20, 2022

LA Blade Digital Staff

Los Angeles Blade graphic

APPLE VALLEY, Ca. – The family of Robert “Bobby” Schmidt, and detectives with the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department are asking for the public’s assistance in the stabbing death of the teenager this past October.

In an interview with KTLA’s Shelby Nelson, Elizabeth Schmidt said her son’s body was in an Apple Valley field, discovered on Oct. 17 by maintenance workers at a nearby daycare center. According to his mother, the 16-year-old was not a troubled kid.

“I’m trying to put the pieces together,” she told KTLA. “Like, who did this, why did they do this?”

Schmidt said she had dropped her son and his best friend, Dre, off at a skatepark that Monday evening at around 7:30 p.m. She was working the graveyard shift that night and it wasn’t until the next morning that she learned her son had never come home.

According to Dre, he’d left Bobby that night with a friend at the Dollar General on Navajo Road, near the skatepark.

Schmidt said she later went looking for her son and filed a police report. “When we were driving by, we had seen the fire department pulling up on scene and them taping it off,” the grieving mother said. “In that moment, I knew that that was my son. I started putting everything together.”

She tearfully added: “He was my everything. He was my only boy, he was awesome. He was a kid that always looked out for others, always looked out for others. We want answers. We’re hoping that one day, you know, somebody would come forward.”

San Bernardino County Sheriff’s investigators said they are still combing through hours of surveillance video, but believe there was some sort of struggle or altercation in the moments leading up to Bobby being murdered, sometime between 9 and 10 p.m.

Detectives are asking anyone who may have information about this incident or who might have been in the area on the night of Oct. 17, to please come forward.

Anyone with information about this case is asked to contact Detective Michelle Del Rio or Sergeant Michael Warrick at Specialized Investigations Division at (909) 890-4904. Callers can remain anonymous and contact We-Tip at 800-78CRIME or www.wetip.com.