Police Kill Mountain Lion After Chase

Police shot and killed a 150-pound mountain lion in Oceanside after a three-hour pre-dawn chase across yards, balconies and rooftops of homes in beachfront residential neighborhoods.

The cat was first reported to officers in a passing patrol car about 2:15 a.m. Saturday by three men in a pickup truck. After checking the area of the sighting at Tremont Street and Oceanside Boulevard and finding nothing, officers surmised that the men had been drinking and had just imagined seeing the animal.

Then, half an hour later, a police car was flagged down by a man who had been sitting on the beach near the 900 block of South Strand to cool off after a fight with his wife. The man told officers that the animal had run past him close enough that he was able to see it in the darkness.

A posse of Oceanside police, state Fish and Game and county Humane Society officers and a professional wild animal trapper joined the hunt after the creature was spotted in the 600 block of South Strand, heading northward over fences and through back yards, onto balconies and rooftops of pricey beach condominiums, sending domestic cats fleeing for their lives.

The pursuers eventually cornered the cat on the edge of a bluff above the 700 block of North Strand but were unable to approach close enough to attempt to capture it.

At 5:15 a.m., five police officers opened fire on the animal, wounding it. The wounded lion then ran off and was hiding under a porch of a home in the 600 block of North Pacific Street. When it reportedly charged one of the pursuing officers, he killed it with nine shots from his 9 millimeter handgun. The attacking lion collapsed and died less than 6 feet away from the officer, police said.

An Oceanside Police Department spokesman said Sunday that the decision to kill the animal was made when the chase awakened residents and threatened to endanger anyone who left their homes to find out what was going on.

The mountain lion’s body was turned over the game wardens, the police spokesman said. The animal appeared to have been tagged and the state officers will attempt to determine where it came from.