Sheriff’s Dept. Won’t Say If Slain Man Was Armed

The Sheriff’s Department on Saturday refused to say whether a 21-year-old Vista man was armed when he was shot and killed by deputies Friday afternoon.

Jeff Bray was shot after he was cornered in the parking lot of his apartment complex in Vista, put his pickup truck in reverse and rammed the sheriff’s patrol car that had been chasing him because the deputies thought the pickup was stolen.

Two deputies opened fire on Bray, who died at the scene from a gunshot to his head.

The truck was not stolen, the department said later.

The two unidentified deputies suffered minor injuries when their car was hit from the front by Bray’s vehicle, a sheriff’s spokesman said.

The department said the deputies chased the truck because it was speeding and they thought it was stolen.

When Bray turned into the apartment complex at 325 Pomelo Drive, the deputies turned on their emergency lights and the truck stopped, according to the department. Just after the deputy in the passenger seat got out of his car, the pickup accelerated backward and rammed the patrol car, and the deputy fired three times. The driving deputy, who was partly out of the car when it was rammed, fired his service revolver once.

Bray was pulled from the vehicle and handcuffed, but he was already dead, the department said.