Police Kill Man They Say Was Rushing Them With Weapons

A Huntington Beach man who “charged” at two police officers with martial arts weapons in each hand was shot and killed Sunday in a home on a quiet residential street, police said.

It was the third fatal police shooting in Orange County in 3 weeks.

Police responded to a disturbance call at a house in the 6800 block of Red Coach Drive about 1:15 p.m. and were confronted by Alan Edward Norried, 26, Huntington Beach Police Sgt. William Stuart said.

“He had some kind of an Okinawan karate weapon” in one hand and a nunchaku in the other hand, Stuart said. “Apparently he charged toward the officers and they opened fire.”

Neither of the officers was injured and their names were not released.

In a prepared statement, Investigations Sgt. W.C. Peterson said officers were called to the residence by a neighbor reporting a disturbance. Upon arriving, they heard noise inside the home.

Police Confronted

The officers “called into the home and were admitted to the home where they were confronted by Alan Norried,” according to Peterson.

“Norried advanced on officers with a martial arts-type weapon in each hand,” he said. “Repeated demands by officers to drop the weapons and freeze . . . were ignored and the officers retreated for their safety.”

When “Norried reached a point very close to the officers and they were in danger of serious injury, two officers fired at Norried,” Peterson said. He was pronounced dead at Fountain Valley Regional Hospital and Medical Center.

Both officers were placed on administrative leave with pay, in keeping with department policy, Peterson said. Police declined to comment further on the case, referring inquiries to the Orange County district attorney’s office, which was investigating the matter as is standard procedure for officer-involved shootings.

One Red Coach Drive neighbor who asked that she not be identified said police had been to the residence where Norried was shot on prior occasions. Stuart said he could not verify that claim Sunday night.

Norried’s parents have lived at the residence about 15 years and he occasionally lived there with them, the neighbor said. Yet the man and his family were not particularly well known in the neighborhood, she said.

Stuart said the Okinawan karate weapon held by Norried was “a sai ,” which originally was a farm implement.

“One pointed end is used for thrusting and stabbing movements” while the other, forked end is used “to catch wrists, clothing or other weapons an opponent may have,” he said. “It is used to twist, lock or disable an opponent.”

The nunchaku is a martial arts weapon consisting of two sticks connected with a rope or chain, Stuart said.

The death was the third fatal police shooting in Orange County since Jan. 20, when Dennis Paul Gonzales, 20, of Garden Grove was shot to death in a volley of gunfire by two Garden Grove policemen responding to a disturbance call at a residence.

Police said the officers opened fire only after seeing Gonzales point what later was determined to be a toy gun at them. Three eyewitnesses to the shooting disputed the police version of the incident, although a district attorney’s investigator said preliminary investigation cast doubt on the witnesses’ account.

On Feb. 2 police shot and killed an unarmed man outside an Anaheim motel room near Disneyland, where his wife and 9-year-old stepson were waiting for him to return from an errand.

Robert Vincent Edson, 28, of Orange, died of a single gunshot wound when two uniformed Anaheim police officers fired 10 shots at him following an auto chase. Police said Edson had appeared to reach for a weapon on the second-floor balcony of the motel.

Edson’s friends said the man led police on a 45-minute chase when they tried to stop him for a traffic violation because he was driving with a suspended license and could not afford auto insurance.

The Edson shooting also is under investigation by the county district attorney.

On Feb. 4 the district attorney’s office cleared Newport Beach police of wrongdoing in the shooting of an unarmed Liberian immigrant along the beach last Labor Day weekend.

Sundaga Bryant, a Santa Ana resident, was critically wounded in his arms and torso by a single blast from the officer Derek Duncan’s 12-gauge shotgun. The officer said he mistook a portable radio that Bryant carried for a gun.

The Newport Beach officer “reasonably and honestly, albeitly mistakenly, believed that he was being confronted by a life-threatening danger,” investigators from the district attorney’s office concluded in ruling out criminal charges.

Bryant, 26 at the time, has sued the city of Newport Beach and Duncan for $1 million.

In recent years there have been a number of fatal shootings by Huntington Beach police. On Sept. 22, 1988, the son of a Los Angeles County sheriff’s lieutenant was shot to death by an officer who responded to a disturbance at a Jamaica Circle home where the man appeared at the door with a gun.

In 1985 two men were killed by Huntington Beach police. On Aug. 1, 1985, a Huntington Beach police officer shot and killed a man who threatened him and others with a knife at a Wildrose Lane home. And on April 13, 1985, a Huntington Beach police officer killed a robbery suspect when he responded to a silent burglar alarm and was confronted by two men at a shop near Main Street.