Teen-Ager Slain by Officer Answering Armed-Man Report

A La Habra teen-ager was shot and killed by police in Yorba Linda early Sunday after authorities responded to a report of a man with a gun in a residential neighborhood, police said.

Dwayne Earl Davis, 18, was shot once by a Brea police officer about 2:40 a.m. and was taken to Placentia Linda Community Hospital where he was pronounced dead on arrival, Brea Police Lt. Clifford Trimble said.

Neighbors said the shooting occurred in the backyard of a home in the 5800 block of Haven Lake Way in Yorba Linda and may have been preceded by an attempted assault on a resident. The neighborhood of $200,000 homes is situated near an old dry reservoir near the Anaheim border.

Yorba Linda contracts with the Police Department in neighboring Brea for police services.

“Officers from the Brea police responded to a report of a man with a gun. An armed suspect was confronted by Brea police and subsequently was shot,” Trimble said, reading a prepared statement.

No officer was injured, he added.

Police declined to release further information, saying that the shooting is under investigation by the Orange County district attorney’s office. The investigation was requested by Brea police and is routine when officer-involved shootings occur, Trimble said.

Investigators with the district attorney’s office spent the morning at the shooting scene after Brea police notified the office about 4 a.m., Assistant Dist. Atty. Maurice Evans said.

But Evans would not speculate about the incident or estimate how soon the investigation would be concluded.

Neighbors and a Yorba Linda City Council member were told by various sources, including police at the scene, that a woman had telephoned police from home for help, using the 911 emergency line and saying that a man was holding a gun to her head.

Police refused to confirm such a telephone call or say whether Davis knew the woman.

“I’m not saying it did (happen), and I’m not saying it didn’t,” Trimble said in response to queries about the report.

Yorba Linda City Councilman Henry Wedaa said he had heard about the woman’s call for help from a source he did not wish to identify. He added that he did not know any details of the incident.

“I understand that the man may have pointed a gun at a woman’s head and that after police arrived he pointed the gun toward the officer’s direction, and the officer fired,” Wedaa said.

One neighbor said his wife awoke about 3 a.m. after hearing what sounded like a gunshot. He said Davis was shot while in the backyard of the unidentified woman’s home.

“After the gunshot, the next thing we heard was the siren from a fire truck,” said the neighbor, who asked not to be identified.