Suspect Recovering After Being Shot by Patrolman in Fracas

A 21-year-old Santa Ana man was recovering Thursday from gunshot wounds he suffered after seizing the baton of an officer attempting to arrest him and striking him on the head, Santa Ana police said.

Daniel Escobedo, 21, was reported in serious condition at a Fountain Valley hospital with wounds in the arms, chest and leg.

Escobedo was shot by a Santa Ana patrolman Wednesday night in the 800 block of South Townsend Street, one of the city’s most notorious drug markets. Lt. Robert Chavez, a police spokesman, gave this account:

The patrol officer, whose name was not released, saw Escobedo and one or two other men allegedly conducting a drug sale. When he approached the men, Escobedo punched the officer in the face.

The patrolman tried to defend himself with his baton, but Escobedo wrested it away, hitting the officer on the head and knocking him down.

The officer pulled his gun and fired twice. Escobedo, who was not hit, fled and hid behind a stairwell at a nearby apartment building. When the patrolman followed, Escobedo jumped out from under the stairwell with the baton, and the officer fired two or three more rounds.

Escobedo was hit “at least twice,” Chavez said. He was taken to Fountain Valley Regional Hospital and Medical Center, where he was being held on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon. He was to be transferred to a jail ward at UCI Medical Center in Orange when his condition permits, Chavez said.

The officer was treated for multiple head injuries and released from the Fountain Valley hospital. Chavez said he may have suffered a mild concussion and has not yet returned to duty.

Escobedo lives with his parents in a tidy house on South Daisy Street, about two blocks from where he was shot. Relatives said he recently got out of jail, and that he did construction work with his father.

The Escobedo shooting was one of two incidents that had police and paramedics scrambling in Santa Ana Wednesday night.

About 9:45 p.m.--less than an hour after Escobedo was shot--three brothers were wounded in the 2300 block of West Stanford Street.

Robert Nunez, 22, and his brothers Rogelio, 18, and Richard, 17, were walking home from the Sanchez Market at the corner of Pomona and Greenville streets when they were shot by unknown assailants, authorities and friends of the family said.

All three were taken to the Fountain Valley hospital, where Rogelio and Robert Nunez were reported in serious condition, Richard in fair condition.

A sister of the men said they were “not into gangs.”

But Chavez said the three were “not being cooperative” with investigators, telling them that they only heard the gunshots and never saw who attacked them. “They’re just not talking,” he said.

Nearby residents said they heard more than a dozen shots.

Marta Alvarado, 25, said that she and her son, Randy, hid on the floor of their second-story apartment, across the street from the shooting.

“It was terrifying,” she said, pointing to two fresh bullet holes in her living room wall. Another bullet, from a shooting a few months ago, had penetrated the kitchen wall. “There’s too much violence in the streets,” she said.