Riverside County District Attorney Rod Pacheco said he plans to release to the public a full written report of his office's investigation into the fatal shootings of three Soboba tribal members by sheriff's deputies in May.

Pacheco said he felt it was necessary given some of the unique circumstances of the case and the public interest.

He said he couldn't recall the last time his office generated such a report. The decision to produce a report in future officer-involved shooting cases will be done on a case-by-case basis, he said.

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William Wilson Lewis III / The Press-Enterprise

The Soboba Indian Reservation entrance was closed prior to services for a tribal member killed in a shooting with sheriff's deputies.

On May 12, Riverside County sheriff's deputies killed Joseph Arres, 36, and Tamara Angela Hurtado, 29, in a gunbattle in a remote part of the Soboba reservation east of San Jacinto.

They were shot multiple times by SWAT officers, who said they had been fired upon by one of the two.

Four days earlier, deputies shot and killed 26-year-old Eli Morillo after they went to investigate gunfire on the reservation and found themselves under attack, authorities said.

Last month, sheriff's investigators turned over a package of information that included witness statements, autopsy results and other evidence to prosecutors, who will determine whether to file criminal charges against the deputies.

Pacheco said investigators are still waiting for transcripts to be completed and can't say when the findings will be released. He said he plans to model his report after those produced by the Los Angeles County district attorney's office.

That office has been generating public reports on all its officer-involved shooting cases for 30 years, said Sandi Gibbons, a spokeswoman.

"The public has the right to know the facts of a shooting and the rationale of why criminal charges aren't filed," she said.

Very few law enforcement officers end up being criminally charged, she said.

"You have to show a crime was committed. That's extremely hard to do."

The San Bernardino County district attorney's office started issuing public reports on a few high-profile officer-involved shooting cases in 1999. In 2003, the office decided to produce reports on all of its officer-involved shooting cases, said Susan Mickey, a spokeswoman.

"We recognized that the public has a lot of interest in those cases and how we reach our decision," Mickey said. "We didn't want the public to think it was a flip decision."

Reach Douglas Quan at 951-368-9479 or dquan@PE.com