Teacher Tells of Confrontation With Taschner

The day before he held a sheriff’s SWAT team and Escondido police at bay, killing one and wounding two others, Robert Gary Taschner was picked up and then released by a sheriff’s deputy after he confronted a schoolteacher at her rural home, telling her that God had sent him.

“I told him, ‘He sent you to the wrong address,’ ” teacher Chesley Ross related Wednesday, adding that, “I think that I am going to buy a gun.”

Ross, an Escondido High School science teacher, said Wednesday that she was shocked to learn that Taschner had been released after her roommate had called the Sheriff’s Department early Friday to report that a “madman” was standing at their open door and wouldn’t leave.

Taschner, who was shot and killed Saturday afternoon at the end of a siege at his Escondido apartment that began Friday night, approached Ross’ isolated home in Jesmond Dene about 5 a.m. Friday.

“My dog was barking his head off and it woke me up,” Ross recounted. “I yelled at the dog and slid open the sliding door and he (Taschner) was right there, bushy beard and dark hair, a big man. I had a heart attack.

“He was raving about talking to the angels and that his wife was testing him and that he was on a quest for love. I screamed at my roommate to call the police.”

Taschner told Ross to “go ahead and call the police; they won’t come,” Ross said.

Ross’ roommate, a teacher at the Poway Unified School District, dialed the Sheriff’s Department and told an officer that a madman was standing in the doorway and wouldn’t leave, said Ross.

“The officer said that it might be a while because there is only one patrol car. Imagine that! One patrol car for the whole county,” Ross said. “He probably thought we were crazy, too, because we were shouting and yelling and telling the officer what he (Taschner) looked like.”

Spelled His Name

While Ross’ roommate was on the telephone to the sheriff’s office, Taschner helpfully spelled his name for them and told them he lived on Mission Avenue in Escondido, about six miles from the Ross home, she recounted.

At one point, Ross said, she pointed to her dog, a great Dane, and warned Taschner to leave or the dog might attack him.

“He just laughed at me. He turned and walked right past the dog and sat down out on a little embankment in the front yard. The dog walked over to him to be petted,” she said. “I was afraid to run or to turn my back on him.”

A sheriff’s deputy called back later Friday morning to tell the women that the man who had been at their door had been picked up and questioned by a deputy, then had been released because there was no cause to hold him, Ross said.

‘Raving About Angels’

“My God, he comes to the door at that hour in the morning, raving about angels, about being headed for heaven, and about being sent by God, and they won’t even take him in. He was crazy. He told us that he’d just got out of jail. I couldn’t believe that they wouldn’t arrest him or something,” Ross said.

The Sheriff’s Department could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

The incident was not Taschner’s only contact with authorities in the days preceding the shoot-out at his Escondido apartment complex.

On Dec. 1, he was arrested for alleged weapons and drug violations; he was freed two days later after posting bail. During the arrest, officials said, Escondido police confiscated numerous weapons from Taschner’s apartment.

The two women confronted by Taschner last Friday did not know about the weekend SWAT action that had led to Taschner’s death until Tuesday, when they read about the siege in a newspaper.

Later, after Ross made two angry calls, the deputy sheriff who had picked up Taschner a few blocks from her home called her to answer her questions, she said.

“He (the deputy) said that the man had ‘checked out’ and that he had no reason to hold him (Taschner) because he had not broken into the house and had not threatened anyone,” Ross said.

Telephoned Male Neighbor

Taschner finally left the Ross yard after the women telephoned a male neighbor and asked him to come over. Taschner apparently was spotted and questioned by a sheriff’s deputy about 30 minutes later, then allowed to go on his way.

About 14 hours later Taschner went berserk in his own apartment, firing rifle shots through the walls into neighboring apartments and holding law enforcement officers at bay outside.

Ross said that she recognized Taschner as the man at her door from newspaper pictures from facts in the news story about his address and his recent release from jail.

“I’m sure he had a gun when he was here,” she said. “I wonder if they even searched him when they stopped him. It’s unbelievable that they just could have let him walk away.”