Officer Shoots, Kills Man in Yorba Linda : Unidentified Suspect, Armed With Shotgun, Trapped After Chase

A Brea police officer in Yorba Linda Thursday shot and killed a man who was armed with a sawed-off, 12-gauge shotgun and had allegedly broken into a home on Thursday morning.

The victim, not identified but described as about 35 years old, was shot once from the officer’s service revolver. He was treated at the scene by paramedics and flown by helicopter to UCI Medical Center in Orange, where a hospital spokeswoman said he died at 8:10 a.m.

Brea police, who are contracted to patrol Yorba Linda, refused to disclose the identity of the officer who fired the fatal shot. The Orange County district attorney’s officer-involved-shooting team is investigating.

The incident began at 6:35 a.m., when a neighbor called police and said a man with a gun was breaking into a home at 21400 Via del Halcon, Brea Police Lt. Larry Baker said. Moments later a woman living in the home also telephoned police and said a man was in the house “possibly to kill her roommate,” Baker said.

When the woman called police, the man fled and was spotted by Police Lt. Jim Winder and officer Clyde Wason at 7:07 a.m. near Esperanza and Yorba Ranch roads, about a half-mile from the Via del Halcon address.

“He jumped a fence and ran into a condominium complex,” Baker said, and was trapped in a grassy area between a row of residences about 50 feet from the Via Santiago cul-de-sac.

At that time the fleeing man was confronted by the two pursuing officers and at least one other policeman, the man who fired the fatal shot, Baker said.

Baker said he did not know the specific circumstances surrounding the shooting except that the suspect had a sawed-off shotgun in his hand when the officer fired.

Baker said the shotgun barrel was sawed off so close to the stock that it resembled a handgun. Police said they were having difficulties identifying the man because he used several aliases.

The neighbor who called police, Wonnell Sharratt, said she spotted the man “casing out the neighborhood” around 5:30 a.m. when she and her husband were going to take a walk.

Sharratt said that the man was hiding next to a car parked on the street and that she called police after she watched him leave the car and go to the house next door. She said the man was the former boyfriend of a woman staying with a couple at the home.

Sharratt said he entered the house and then left.

The couple and woman refused to discuss the incident.

Baker declined to say if the man knew one or both the women at the Via del Halcon address.