Deputy Slain, 2 Other Officers Wounded by Gunman Who Is Killed in Shoot-Out

A San Diego County sheriff’s deputy was killed and two deputies were wounded by an Escondido man before other officers shot him dead at the end of a 12-hour siege Saturday at a Mission Avenue apartment.

Officers killed the man at sunset as he ran, firing an AK-47 automatic rifle, from his apartment, which had been set ablaze by tear gas grenades and concussion bombs fired from the San Diego Police Department’s armored assault vehicle.

The dead deputy was identified as Lonny Brewer, 29, of El Cajon, who had served in the department for seven years, the last two years as a member of the elite Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) unit.

Fatal Chest Wound

Brewer died of a chest wound despite almost two hours of surgery at Palomar Memorial Hospital. He is only the third member of the department killed in the line duty this century, Sheriff John Duffy said.

Officer Scott Rossall, 31, of Encinitas, was in good condition at Palomar with a single bullet wound in the leg. A third SWAT officer, Chuck Wagner of North County, was treated for a superficial finger wound.

Brewer and Rossall were shot in an unsuccessful morning assault on the apartment of Robert Gary Taschner, 37, an apparent weapons enthusiast and suspected drug user well known to Escondido police.

Taschner had been arrested Tuesday for alleged weapons and drug violations, but posted bail Thursday and apparently returned home. Escondido police confiscated numerous weapons from Taschner’s apartment in the Tuesday arrest, spokesmen said Saturday.

Call From Neighbor

The grisly chain of events began at 10:30 p.m. Friday at the Fairwinds Town House at 980 East Mission after a next-door neighbor of Taschner reported a shot fired through the wall into her apartment, Capt. Mike Stein of the Escondido Police Department said. Police who responded to the scene found no sign of Taschner, he said.

At 4:15 a.m. Saturday, police received another call reporting shots at the complex. But when they arrived this time, Taschner was found to be in his apartment but was unwilling to communicate with the officers, Stein said.

As a result of the standoff, Escondido police called for assistance from the sheriff’s SWAT team and began evacuating residents in the complex and from houses facing the two-story building.

“At 9:50 a.m., the team fired tear gas into the apartment in order to flush him (Taschner) out,” sheriff’s spokesman Lt. Alan Fulmer said. “It did not work, he did not come out, and at 10 a.m., the team elected force entry.”

Gunfire From Within

With gas still hanging in the air, the entry team--which included Brewer and Rossall--forced the ground-floor door of the apartment building and were immediately met by gunfire from Taschner, who was in a prone position 15 feet inside the apartment, Fulmer said.

Fulmer said that Rossall was the first officer hit, taking a bullet in his leg and spinning around to the ground in the parking lot before being helped to safety by fellow officers. But Fulmer said that in the confusion of noise and gas, the assault team did not realize for “10 to 15 minutes” that Brewer had also been hit.

Brewer was taken by paramedics to Palomar where a surgical team labored unsuccessfully for more than two hours in an attempt to save him. “It was in all probability a lethal injury . . . and he was probably dead at the scene,” said surgeon Dr. Thomas Velky.

Times staff writer Richard Serrano contributed to this article.