ANTIOCH — For the second time in as many months, a suspect is facing charges of allegedly kidnapping an on-duty Bay Area police officer and this time, the officer shot the suspect in the leg inside a moving vehicle, according to authorities.
The latest incident occurred Feb. 20 in Antioch, when police Officer Travis Donaldson was trying to wrestle a robbery suspect out of a vehicle and the man stomped on the accelerator, throwing Donaldson into the car as the momentum pulled him in. Donaldson spent several minutes attempting to reason with the man and convince him to stop as they sped through city streets.
Finally, the officer drew his duty pistol and shot the man in the leg, authorities said.
The suspect, identified in court filings as Dominick DeSouza, 23, has been charged with seven felonies, including kidnapping Donaldson, assaulting another officer with his vehicle, robbery of a FoodMaxx where the incident started, and earlier, unrelated incidents of burglary, grand theft, and car theft, court records show. DeSouza is in jail with a $600,000 bail and a parole hold, and is set to appear in court on Friday.
DeSouza has pleaded not guilty to all charges, records show. At the time of the incident, he had been out of jail for four days, having posted $55,000 bail in a pending domestic violence assault case in Solano County.
The alleged kidnapping of Donaldson was the second time this normally rare type of crime — the abduction of a policeman during the course of his job — has occurred in the East Bay in two months. Last New Year’s Eve, a man named Jonathan Vaca, 32, allegedly pulled California Highway Patrol Officer Timothy Brown into his vehicle during a traffic stop, then took off at an estimated 80 miles per hour down the freeway. Brown yelled at Vaca to stop, warned Vaca he could crash and kill them both, then drew his firearm and convinced Vaca to let him out, Brown wrote in his police report.
Vaca was charged with kidnapping and arrested three weeks later, court records show. He was later released from jail on $75,000 bail.
In DeSouza’s case, he allegedly used a vehicle to ram through the front of a FoodMaxx on the 4500 block of Lone Tree Way at around 5:15 a.m. on Feb. 20. Donaldson, one of the officers to respond, attempted to pull DeSouza from the car, but ended up being pulled inside by the force generated from its acceleration, authorities said. The two wrestled over control of the vehicle, speeding through city streets, and Donaldson ordered DeSouza to pull over several times, then shot him in the leg out of fear for his safety, authorities said.
DeSouza was hospitalized and treated for the gunshot wound before being transferred to jail. Court records say he pleaded no contest to robbery and organized retail theft in 2024, stemming from an incident in Fairfield, and was sentenced to eight months behind bars.
Donaldson was sworn in as an Antioch officer in 2024. He was one of several relatively new police hires by a city working to address residents’ concerns of crime response times and fill the void from 2023-2024, when 13 officers lost their jobs for either alleged crimes, involving in racist and homophobic group chats, or both. Donaldson was placed on administrative leave for the shooting, which is standard any time an officer fires their gun for any reason, authorities said.
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