A Candlelight Vigil Was Held for Jacob Faust

A candlelight vigil was held for Jacob Faust on April 4. He had been fatally shot three times by a San Diego police officer around 1:45 that morning in front of the Golden West Hotel at Fourth and G Street.

"I met Jake Faust about seven years ago through a tight-knit community of swing dancers," writes Evan Kennedy on a memorial page at www.jivejunction.com/jacobfaust. "Jake always seemed to not be playing with a 'full deck,' but that is what we loved about the guy."

The police department says Faust, 24, was pulled over on a routine traffic stop. His license had been suspended for suspicion of DUI, he was uncooperative and turned his radio up, and he reached for what police thought was a "chrome semi-automatic handgun" but was actually a prop gun with an orange cap on the barrel that Faust used in a puppet show with a local vaudeville and music group, the Carnival Barkers.

As the matter is under investigation, field reports from the officers involved are not available yet. The officer who shot him is an 11-year veteran on the force.

Faust played the organ at the United Methodist Church in Mission Valley, as well as the accordion and guitar in the local swing-dance scene.

Marcelo Teson remembers when Faust used to DJ at Memories, a swing dance club in Whittier. "One time he played this absolutely impossible-to-dance-to version of 'Mack the Knife' by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds.... The dancers just sorta stood there on the floor with 'WTF' expressions on their faces."