Transient Shot Dead in Fight With Police : Who Fired First a Mystery in Shoot-Out

Police said Tuesday that they haven’t determined “who actually fired first,” a Costa Mesa officer or a gun-toting man that the officer shot and killed Monday afternoon during a standoff behind a small Costa Mesa printing business.

But Sgt. Rick Johnson, a police spokesman, said the victim, Edward William Gerard, 33, a transient, fired a .44-caliber, 7 1/2-inch revolver at police before he was shot once in the face by one of three officers at the scene.

Gerard, who was armed with a gun that police said was stolen earlier this week in a Santa Ana burglary, was declared dead Monday afternoon in the alley behind the Newport Boulevard storefront. Someone at the business had called police about 3 p.m. to report seeing a man with a gun.

Preliminary information released by police Monday indicated that the three officers were investigating a possible illegal gun sale between Gerard and another man near a motor home parked behind Hoover Printing Co. when Gerard “opened fire” on them and they fired back.

But Johnson said Tuesday that it is still unclear who fired the first of seven or eight shots in the exchange. He said that there apparently was no gun sale and that a second man in the alley, who was questioned by detectives as a possible suspect, was a friend of Gerard who has been “cleared of any wrongdoing.”

“We’re still not really sure why (Gerard) was there,” Johnson said. “We don’t really know the relationship between him and the friend.” The second man’s name was not released.

The three officers, who were not identified, were not injured in the incident. They have been placed on administrative leave with pay pending the outcome of a joint investigation into the shoot-out by the Costa Mesa Police Department and the district attorney’s office.

Deputy district attorneys involved in the investigation, which is being conducted at the request of the Police Department as a matter of routine, declined comment Tuesday on the case.

Johnson said a uniformed officer was dispatched to the print shop to investigate a report of an armed man who possibly was conducting a gun sale. Two plainclothes officers arrived moments later to assist.

“Everyone had guns drawn” at this point, Johnson said.

Although it was not certain who fired first in the shoot-out, Johnson said Gerard fired his revolver and was then wounded once in the face by one of the officers.

Gerard and his friend, who were standing near the motor home, drew the attention of someone in either the print shop or a surrounding business because “people from the surrounding businesses knew it didn’t belong there, they saw him and knew he didn’t belong back there, and they saw he had a gun,” Johnson said.

Johnson said he knew little about Gerard, other than that his family lived somewhere in the Midwest and that he had been unemployed. State Department of Motor Vehicles records show that the blond, blue-eyed Gerard had previously lived in Santa Ana, was convicted in 1982 and 1984 for drunk driving and was on three years’ probation.