FBI Now Investigating Vista Slaying by Sheriff’s Deputy

The FBI said Friday that it will investigate the fatal shooting of Jeffrey Bray last week in Vista by a reserve sheriff’s deputy, saying the victim’s civil rights may have been violated by the officers.

FBI spokesman Ron Orrantia said the bureau decided on its own on Friday to conduct the probe, but that, coincidentally, the father of the victim called the FBI later in the day to ask for an investigation.

“We have a preliminary investigation under way, initiated by ourselves, for a possible federal civil rights violation under the color of law,” Orrantia said.

The investigation, he said, will be concurrent with the one now being conducted by the Sheriff’s Department. Results of that investigation will be turned over to the district attorney’s office for review and possible action. Orrantia offered no date for the conclusion of the FBI probe, and he declined to comment further on the investigation.

Sgt. Glenn Revell, a spokesman for the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department, said: “The FBI’s decision to initiate an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the death of Jeffery Bray is certainly within the realm of their authority. The Sheriff’s Department will assist the bureau in any way it can.”

Joe Bray, Jeffrey Bray’s father, said in a telephone interview from Conway, Ark., that he welcomes the FBI’s interest in the shooting death of his 21-year-old son.

“I’m happy to know they’re looking into it,” he said.

“I called them myself (Friday) morning and talked to an agent who asked me why I wanted them to look into it. I said I felt they needed to. There was a pause, and he put me on hold, and he came back and told me that they already were doing a preliminary investigation.”

The FBI’s investigation will be the second outside of the district attorney’s office to review the shooting. On Wednesday, the County Board of Supervisors asked the grand jury to also investigate the killing, and on Friday the grand jury said it would.

Jeffrey Bray was shot and killed May 18 when he pulled into the driveway of his apartment complex in Vista and, apparently unwittingly, backed into a patrol car that had followed him on the suspicion that Bray was driving a stolen vehicle.

Witnesses have told The Times that reserve Deputy Sheriff John S. Wickham, 31, had gotten out of the passenger side of the vehicle just as Bray accelerated backward, and fired at Bray three times with his 9-millimeter semiautomatic handgun as Bray’s pickup truck collided with the patrol car. One of the shots fired by Wickham--who instructs other reserve deputies in firearms--struck Bray in the head, killing him instantly.

At the same time, Sheriff’s Deputy William C. Fewell got out on the driver’s side and, mistaking Wickham’s shots for ones being fired from the pickup truck, fired his own .357-caliber revolver at the truck, the department said.

Until then, sources at the Sheriff’s Department say, the two deputies apparently believed they had shot a 24-year-old Latino man known as “Shorty,” who has had frequent run-ins with law enforcement in North County, mostly in Vista.

Fewell and Wickham were at the Vista sheriff’s substation when they overheard a car-to-car radio call from another deputy in the field, Joe Mata, that he had spotted the man known as Shorty in what may have been a stolen vehicle, according to those who heard the call. Because he had a prisoner in his patrol car, Mata himself couldn’t give chase, but radioed in the suspect’s nickname, a description of the vehicle and its license plate number.

Fewell enlisted Wickham, who had just arrived for his volunteer shift and was still in his street clothes, and the two drove to Hacienda Drive, which runs alongside the sheriff’s substation and which is where Mata said he last saw the red pickup truck.

The Sheriff’s Department acknowledged that the two deputies tailed the wrong truck, mistakenly choosing to follow Bray’s similar vehicle because he was traveling at an “excessive speed.”

The department said the deputies followed Bray into his apartment complex and stopped 20 feet behind his vehicle, but, no sooner had Wickham gotten out of the patrol car than Bray looked rearward and accelerated backward, colliding with the patrol car. At that moment, Wickham shot and killed Bray, a carpenter who was on leave from the Marine Corps.

A man at the shooting scene, who asked that his name not be published, told The Times that he had called out to Bray as he drove up the driveway, and contends that Bray stopped his vehicle and backed up to talk to him. Bray didn’t know the sheriff’s patrol car was there, the witness said, and was shot and killed before he knew what he had hit.

Even after the shooting, the identity of the victim was still a mystery to some, as deputies at the Vista station told others, according to one deputy who was there, that “they shot Shorty.”

In fact, the original suspect had turned off Hacienda Drive into another apartment complex, and even watched the patrol car as it continued up the street, following Bray, according to deputies familiar with last week’s events.

At the time, there were two separate misdemeanor arrest warrants for the suspect Shorty, but law enforcement officers have long acknowledged that, because the county’s jails are crowded, only persons wanted on felony arrest warrants are apprehended.

Shorty was most recently named in the two separate arrest warrants for his failure to appear in Vista Municipal Court to answer to charges that he was driving a vehicle on a revoked or suspended driver’s license.

The 24-year-old, according to court records, had previously pleaded guilty twice to misdemeanor battery, including one assault on his live-in girlfriend about a year ago, and a second time four months ago.

In November, 1988, he pleaded guilty to misdemeanor counts of possession of methamphetamine and driving without a license. A third charge, of possessing a dagger, was dropped, court records show.

Deputies familiar with Shorty said his most recent run-in with the law came when he was stopped two months ago on suspicion of driving a stolen vehicle--a red pickup truck. The vehicle was not stolen, it was learned, and instead he was cited for driving on a suspended license and for not having insurance.

In the moments after the shooting last week, Fewell and Wickham apparently believed that they had been dealing with an armed suspect. Witnesses said the deputies ordered the driver several times to put his hands where they would be visible, and yelled to the bystander witness to get out of the area because “the guy’s got a gun.”

No weapon was found.