Deputies Surround and Kill Armed Man Outside Restaurant

Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies surrounded a heavily armed man in a stolen pickup truck as he waited in a Lancaster restaurant’s drive-through service line early Monday, then shot him to death in a fusillade of bullets when he tried to escape, they said.

Ronald Lee Carson, 24, was gunned down about 1:40 a.m. because he pointed a rifle at deputies who had ringed the truck outside a Naugle’s Restaurant, Lt. Frank Merriman said.

A spokesman for the Los Angeles County coroner’s office said investigators had been unable to determine Carson’s most recent address, but his family was from Oakdale in Northern California.

One deputy received a minor cut on the leg from ricocheting cement, Merriman said. The two restaurant employees on duty had been warned in advance by telephone to take cover, Merriman said, and two patrons in a car ahead of Carson were motioned away from the scene just before the confrontation.

Merriman, a homicide detective who supervised Monday’s investigation, said the shooting appeared justified because Carson refused to surrender and pointed his rifle at the deputies.

The shooting followed a report to sheriff’s deputies by two off-duty security guards that Carson was loading a rifle about midnight in the parking lot of a Lucky Food Center at 10th Street East and Avenue J. The guards said Carson also had a handgun tucked into his waistband, Merriman said.

He said it was not immediately clear whether the security guards, whose names were not released, worked for Lucky or just happened to be on the premises.

The guards had jotted down the truck’s license plate number. Deputies at the Antelope Valley sheriff’s station discovered that the 1987 Ford Ranger had been reported stolen from a North Las Vegas gas station on May 11 and notified patrolling deputies to look for it.

“That time of night, there are X number of places open around town, so the area cars just started checking around, and . . . lo and behold, there he is in line at the Naugle’s Restaurant,” Merriman said.

A dozen deputies surrounded the drive-through window area, and seven approached Carson with their weapons drawn, shouting at him to get out of the truck with his hands up, Merriman said.

Instead of complying, Merriman said, Carson first tried backing up but found himself blocked by a patrol car. Then he drove forward, and at the same time raised the rifle.

All seven deputies opened fire, fatally wounding Carson, who was pronounced dead at the scene by paramedics. He also had a .357 magnum handgun. In the truck, investigators found the rifle, a shotgun, 200 rounds of ammunition and three knives, deputies said.

Merriman said papers found in the truck indicated that Carson was facing criminal charges, but he was unable to provide details.

Merriman said deputies confronted Carson at the restaurant, rather than waiting for him to drive to a less public area, because they wanted to avoid a possibly dangerous pursuit and felt they could maintain better control in the drive-through line, where the truck’s movements were restricted by pylons supporting an overhang.

“I’m satisfied with the way it was handled thus far,” Merriman said. “We’ve by no means completed our investigation, but at this point, it certainly appears to be a justifiable shooting.”

A spokesman for Naugle’s said the restaurant chain had no complaints about the way deputies handled the situation. The fast-food chain closes its dining room by midnight, but its drive-through window remains open 24 hours.

“It’s impossible for us to second-guess the police,” said Paul Hitzelberger, executive vice president of marketing for Naugle’s. “They’re carrying out their duties, and I don’t have any cause to have any negative comments.”

Hitzelberger said damage at the outlet was still being assessed but included a $5,000 menu board damaged by bullets. The unnamed employees, who were warned by a telephone call from the sheriff’s station to take cover in the restaurant’s rear storage area a few minutes before deputies moved in, were “major frightened” but otherwise unharmed, Hitzelberger said.