An Ontario County Grand Jury has decided not to indict Canandaigua Police Sergeant Scott Kadien in the shooting death of Parole Officer Sandy Guardiola last October. The grand jury found Sergeant Kadien was justified in using deadly physical force after Guardiola fired a round from her service weapon and refused to stop trying to raise her gun.
District Attorney James Ritts says the grand jury looked at medical records and photos in reaching its decision.
Sergeant Kadien was sent to Guardiola’s apartment complex to check on her wellbeing after she hadn’t been heard from in three weeks. Ritts says “frankly, when he went in he expected to find her deceased.” Instead, after being let in by apartment management, the officer found Guardiola in bed, semi conscious. He stepped out to call an ambulance, and when he stepped back in the bedroom said Guardiola pulled her pistol out from under her pillow and fired a shot. He ordered her repeatedly not to shoot and to stop raising the weapon, then fired three times at her when she didn’t.
Speaking in a news conference, Ritts said toxicology reports found large amounts of a prescription anti-anxiety drug in Guardiola’s system, a drug she didn’t have a prescription for. He says that could explain her lethargy, but not why she pointed a gun at a uniformed police officer. He said “there is no indication…why this happened.”