Kurt Reinhold

Sep 23

Written By M T

42 years old · San Clemente, California · September 23, 2020

Who he was

Kurt Andras Reinhold was 42 years old, a husband and a father of two young children. He had worked as a car sales associate at a Nissan dealership. He was an educated man who loved his family and had spent years trying to hold his life together while living with schizoaffective disorder — a serious mental illness that brought periods of homelessness as he moved between the Bay Area and southern California. His family was supportive, but he would travel around. In August 2020, he had come to San Clemente, where the city's homeless outreach team had tried to offer him services several times. On the afternoon of September 23, he was hungry. A woman at a nearby flower stand gave him money. He got something to eat. Then he stepped into an intersection, and two deputies decided to stop him, and he was dead within minutes.

What happened

At approximately 1:12 p.m. on September 23, 2020, two Orange County Sheriff's Department deputies assigned to the city's homeless outreach team were on patrol at El Camino Real and Avenida San Gabriel in front of the Hotel Miramar in San Clemente. Dashcam video shows the deputies sitting in a parking lot, watching Reinhold step into an intersection as a green light turned yellow, then walk back as the squad car started moving. The deputies discussed whether to stop him at all. They decided to approach.

Neither deputy was wearing a body camera. One of the deputies already had a Taser out as they approached Reinhold, according to the family's attorney. The encounter escalated. Deputies attempted to detain him. A struggle ensued. The deputies pinned Reinhold to the ground. Deputy Eduardo Duran fired two shots after Deputy Jonathan Israel claimed Reinhold had reached for and tried to remove Israel's firearm. Futile CPR attempts were made. Reinhold was dead at the scene.

Official ruling

The Orange County Sheriff's Department released a 12-minute "critical incident" video in February 2021. On February 11, 2022 — 16 months after the shooting — Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer announced his office would not charge Deputy Duran, finding he had acted in a "reasonable and justifiable manner." The DA's office determined the stop was legally justified — not for jaywalking as the deputies initially said, but for crossing against a red light. "Based upon a review of all of the evidence… it is our legal opinion that there is no evidence of criminal culpability on the part of the deputy," the letter stated. Both deputies were returned to duty and reassigned.

Contested record

The family's attorneys, the civil rights community, and the DA's own investigation all arrived at a crucial shared conclusion: Reinhold was not jaywalking. The deputies invented a reason to approach him. Everything that followed flowed from a stop that had no legal basis.

Attorney Neil Gehlawat said: "The deputies had no business stopping him in the first place. Everything after that is unlawful. The standard for a detention under the Fourth Amendment is that the officers have to have reasonable suspicion he is committing a crime, and I don't think that standard is met."

On the gun claim: Gehlawat said "this reaching for the gun is a false narrative. If you watch the video closely, Mr. Reinhold is in a chokehold by the deputy. He's flailing his arms, which happen to incidentally touch the holster area. There's no physical way possible he could unholster the gun."

The wrongful death civil lawsuit alleged that Orange County's homeless outreach team disproportionately targets and detains people of color and lacks the training to deal with mentally ill people. The Orange County Office of Independent Review, in its first oversight report in years, explored "troubling cultural currents" in the use of force training and policies at the OC Sheriff's Department.

Family attorney John Taylor said the DA's office "works hand-in-hand with deputies from the Sheriff's Department on a daily basis, and as such their reviews of deputy shootings can hardly be considered 'independent.'" Across the 13 months before the charging decision, the DA's office had released 21 total decision letters on police shootings and in-custody deaths — none of which declared any officer criminally culpable.

Legal process

September 23, 2020 — Kurt Andras Reinhold shot twice and killed by OCSD Deputy Eduardo Duran during a street stop for alleged jaywalking in San Clemente. No body cameras on either deputy. No charges announced.

October 2020 — Family files wrongful death claim against Orange County. Family's attorney states Reinhold was unarmed and posed no imminent threat.

December 2020 — Family files wrongful death lawsuit against the county and deputies Israel and Duran individually.

February 17, 2021 — Orange County Sheriff's Department releases 12-minute "critical incident" video of the shooting.

February 11, 2022 — Orange County DA Todd Spitzer announces no criminal charges against Deputy Duran. Rules shooting justified. Determines Reinhold was not jaywalking but had crossed against a red light — redefining the legal basis for the stop after the fact.

April 2022 — Protesters march from Hotel Miramar to Historic City Hall in San Clemente following the DA's decision.

May 9, 2023 — Orange County Board of Supervisors votes 4-0 to approve a $7.5 million civil settlement with the Reinhold family — the largest settlement against the Orange County Sheriff's Department for a police shooting.

As of June 2026 — Case closed. No criminal charges filed. Deputies returned to duty and reassigned. Civil settlement paid. No systemic reforms to OCSD homeless outreach protocols announced.