Friend Says Slain Vista Man Unaware of Deputies : Shooting: A witness says he called ‘hello,’ prompting Jeffrey Bray to back up his truck and hit the Sheriff’s Department patrol car.

A man who said he witnessed Friday’s fatal shooting of a 21-year-old Vista man by sheriff’s deputies said Monday that the victim probably wasn’t even aware of the deputies’ presence, and was simply backing up his truck to chat when he unwittingly rammed into the patrol car.

The San Diego County Sheriff’s Department said two deputies shot at Jeffrey Bray after his vehicle “accelerated sharply” backward toward their patrol car. The deputies had followed Bray into the Vista apartment complex where he lived because they suspected the vehicle was stolen and because he was driving at an “excessive rate of speed” along the street in front of his apartment.

The pickup was not stolen, the department said later. Bray, a carpenter whose wife is pregnant with their first child, was declared dead at the scene after being shot once in the head by one of the two deputies.

On Monday, the Sheriff’s Department identified the two deputies as William C. Fewell, 32, who has been with the department five years and who was driving the patrol car, and John S. Wickham, 31, a reserve deputy who has worked out of the Vista station for 6 1/2 years.

As is department policy, both men were placed on paid leave, pending results of an investigation, which will be turned over to the district attorney’s office for review, said department spokesman Sgt. Glenn Revell.

“I can’t support it was either a justified or was not a justified shooting, with the information I have,” Revell said.

Neither officer is believed to have been involved in previous shootings, Revell said.

The department Monday also sent a letter of apology to the Vista Press after deputies at the scene seized a roll of film from a photographer who was the first newsman at the scene. The film was returned to the newspaper Saturday. The department said investigators thought the film might have “evidentiary value,” and said it “regrets this incident occurred.”

Bray was a Marine who was appealing his bad-conduct discharge from the Marine Corps last summer and was working as a carpenter.

The eyewitness to the shooting, who said he gave his story to sheriff’s investigators Friday night during a five-hour interview, said Bray probably never realized the patrol car had followed him into the Vista Hacienda apartment complex, in the 300 block of Pomelo Drive, just several blocks from the sheriff’s Vista station.

“I feel kind of responsible that he was killed, because, if I hadn’t shouted out to him (Bray), he wouldn’t have stopped and backed up,” said the eyewitness, who asked that his name not be published.

The man said he was in his own pickup, parked in a carport in the apartment complex, and was about to leave when he saw, through his own passenger door window, Bray driving up the driveway toward him. The eyewitness said he saw the patrol car behind Bray, but did not notice any flashing emergency lights.

As Bray drove past his own pickup, “I figured Jeff had his radio on real loud, like he always did, so I yelled ‘Hey!’ real loud to get his attention,” the man said. “I wanted to invite him to a barbecue.” At the time, the eyewitness was still seated in his car, and shouted out his driver’s door window.

“Jeff stopped, looked over and saw it was me and started to back up,” he said. The patrol car stopped about 10 feet behind Bray, he said. “One cop was already getting out of the passenger door and yelled ‘Stop’ twice, but I don’t think Jeff heard him,” the man said.

“He (Bray) was looking at me, not the cop. He backed up to talk to me, and hit the patrol car. Then he turned around to see what he hit, like he was surprised.”

At that moment, the eyewitness said, the deputy later identified as Wickham fired his weapon three times. About that same moment, the flashing emergency lights became apparent to the eyewitness and Fewell was just getting out of the car, the man said. After the cars hit, Fewell fired once, the eyewitness said.

“I jumped out of my car and was yelling, ‘No! No!’ And the cop yelled at me, ‘Get out of here! He’s got a gun!’

“But there’s no way Jeff has a gun,” the friend said. “I’ve never seen him with a gun.”

Sheriff’s investigators searched Bray’s vehicle Monday and found no weapon, Revell said.

Bray did not accelerate backward quickly, the eyewitness said: “The tires didn’t ‘chirp’ or anything, like I’ve heard other people say.”

In the moments after the shooting, the two deputies cautiously approached the car, saw Bray slumped over, pulled him out of the car and laid him face down on the asphalt, handcuffing his hands behind his back. The witness said, “There was no doubt he was dead.” Bray’s body remained on the pavement for about five hours.

Bray’s wife, Lena, heard sirens and commotion but didn’t realize for several hours that her husband had been shot, friends say.

Lena Bray, through a family friend, declined comment Monday, saying only that the family was in the process of retaining an attorney and was trying to arrange for Bray’s funeral in Conway, Ark., his hometown.

Revell said the two deputies--Wickham, the reserve deputy, was in plainclothes--pulled in behind Bray’s pickup as it was traveling west on Hacienda Drive. Bray turned left at Pomelo Drive and was driving at an “excessive rate of speed” when he “abruptly (turned)” into his apartment complex,” Revell said.

“At that point, the deputies activate their overhead emergency lights,” Revell said, speaking in the present tense. “The truck yields in the apartment complex driveway, and comes to a stop. Deputy Wickham gets out of the passenger side, the driver of the truck looks rearward, shifts the truck into reverse and accelerates sharply to the rear.

“Moments before it impacts the patrol car, Deputy Wickham fires three shots at the driver. Deputy Fewell is exiting the patrol car when it is struck by the pickup. He exits the car and fires one shot in the direction of the car.”

Fewell fired his .357 magnum revolver once, and Wickham shot three times with his 9-millimeter semiautomatic handgun, Revell said.

Deputy County Coroner Cal Vine said Bray received one lethal shot to his head. The autopsy is expected to be completed in two to three weeks.

Why did the deputies fire?

“I don’t really know,” Revell said. “I can tell you that, if a car backed up and is perceived by the officer as a threat, then lethal action might be appropriate.”

Both deputies suffered minor injuries as they were hit by their own car after the collision, Revell said.

Bray was a lance corporal in the Marine Corps and drove amphibious assault vehicles, said Staff Sgt. John Midgette, a Camp Pendleton spokesman. Last year, Bray was charged with one count of unauthorized absence, one count of possession of drug paraphernalia, one count of possession of a controlled substance, and 30 counts of writing bad checks, Midgette said.

On June 16, a special court-martial issued him a bad-conduct discharge, confinement for four months in the base brig, forfeiture of $400 in pay per month for four months, and demoted him to private.

Last August, Bray was placed on appellate leave while Marine authorities in Washington reviewed his case--a procedure that could take up to three years, Midgette said.

Six months ago, Bray responded to a newspaper ad and hired on as a carpenter for Calco West Developers, a San Marcos home builder.

“He was a real nice, clean, likable guy who was always at work a half hour early and was always there at the end of the day to make sure everything was done, or to see if something else needed to be done,” said Michael Martineau, a project manager for a construction job in Vista where Bray was working.

“On Friday, he picked up his paycheck after 3:30 and left,” he said. “He was conscientious and personable, and he was real proud of the baby that was coming. He talked excitedly two weeks ago about the ultrasound results and how pleased he was.

“Jeff was a quiet guy and kept to himself. But he was always quick to say ‘Hello.’ And, being a former Marine, he always ended every statement with ‘Sir.’ ”