Suspect Shot to Death in Newport After Police Chase

An auto theft suspect who led police on a chase from Fountain Valley to the Balboa Peninsula was killed early Wednesday in a volley of gunfire by officers who feared the man was trying to run them over, authorities said.

The shooting victim was pronounced dead at 4:45 a.m. at the intersection of 40th Street and Seashore Drive, said Fountain Valley Detective Sgt. Darryl B. Nance. Police had not been able to identify the young man by late Wednesday.

Police said the chase ended when the unarmed suspect wedged the stolen Chevrolet Blazer sideways between a wall and a parked car after spinning out of control turning onto 40th Street, a narrow one-way road less than a mile from the Newport Pier.

When it appeared that the suspect was trying to turn the vehicle toward officers who were standing in the street, police opened fire. The suspect was struck at least four times in the side, thigh and left arm.

“The suspect was trying to get his vehicle backed out and turned toward the officers,” Nance said. The officers “feared for their safety.”

The shooting was the 12th officer-involved shooting in Orange County this year, and the fourth fatality. The district attorney’s office has cleared the officers involved in two of the shootings and the third is under investigation. Wednesday’s shooting by police, which is the third in the county this month, is also under investigation.

Sirens and the sound of gunfire woke up residents for several blocks along the peninsula as the suspect and police from Fountain Valley and Newport Beach made their way from Balboa Boulevard to 40th Street.

“I could hear the sirens coming for blocks,” said Robert Howard, who watched the shooting from his second-story bedroom window. “He skidded around the corner, and then one cop rammed right into him. (But) he kept trying to get his car turned around.”

Witnesses interviewed agreed that the man ignored police orders to get out of Blazer. But some wondered whether police used excessive force.

“I know he stole a car, but he didn’t have to die for it,” Howard said.

“I don’t really think they had a good enough reason to kill him,” added Scot Thompson, who lives in one of the two-story apartments that overlooks the corner where the shooting occurred.

Fountain Valley police said the officers involved followed proper police procedure and declined to comment further pending investigation.

The chase began just after 4 a.m., when the owner of the Blazer stopped at a doughnut shop at the corner of Beach Boulevard and Slater Avenue in Huntington Beach, said Huntington Beach Police Lt. Ed McErlain. As the Blazer’s owner walked into the shop to buy a cup of coffee, the suspect approached him and asked for a ride to the beach, McErlain said.

When the owner refused, the suspect walked out, jumped into the Blazer, in which the keys had been left, and sped away, the officer said.

Huntington Beach police broadcast a description of the vehicle and its license plate number over police channels. Two Fountain Valley units spotted the Blazer and followed it on a winding chase through Fountain Valley and Huntington Beach, reaching a speed of 100 m.p.h., Nance said.

At the intersection of Brookhurst Street and Pacific Coast Highway, the Fountain Valley officers managed to stop the Blazer. As one of the officers got out of his car, Nance said, the suspect turned the vehicle and attempted to run the officer over. The Blazer struck the police car and the suspect then drove the stolen vehicle south on Pacific Coast Highway, toward Newport Beach, Nance said.

After the suspect crashed the Blazer on 40th Street, he tried desperately to turn the vehicle around, witnesses said. In the process, he reportedly damaged two parked cars and destroyed a concrete wall.

While the suspect was working the vehicle back and forth in an attempt to free himself, the officers jumped out of their cars, pulled their handguns and began yelling for him to stop, Nance said.

But the man apparently refused to comply.

“He (one of the officers) was screaming at the top of his lungs,” said a witness, Todd Guevara. “The driver wouldn’t stop. He was ready to do anything he could to get out of there. I’d be freaked, too, if I was a cop.”

As the officers stood with their guns drawn, police and some witnesses said, the man appeared to reach for something inside the automobile. One witness, who declined to be identified, said that a policeman was heard shouting, “What do you have in there?”

Seconds later, the officers opened fire, sending at least six rounds into the vehicle and the suspect.