NEWPORT BEACH : Suspect Identified in Motor Home Chase

A man who allegedly stole a motor home and led authorities on a chase that ended in gunfire on a popular surfing beach was identified Tuesday as Elliott Martin Hoffman, 20, of Diamond Bar.

Hoffman was in critical condition at Western Medical Center-Santa Ana with gunshot wounds and dog bites.

At least six Los Angeles County Sheriff’s deputies fired into the driver’s window at Hoffman after the mobile home was cornered at the tip of the Balboa Peninsula at 6 a.m. The officers believed Hoffman was going to drive into them, Sgt. Robert Olmsted said.

L.A. County Sheriff’s Deputy Bill Wehner said departmental policy states that deputies have to make their own decisions in using firearms.

“When you have a situation where there’s a split second to make a decision and where people’s lives are in danger, you have to decide,” Wehner said. “They have a duty to use firearms whenever necessity exists involving their lives and the lives of others.”

No weapon was found with Hoffman, authorities said.

The Orange County district attorney’s office is investigating the chase and the shooting. Supervising Deputy Dist. Atty. Guy Ormes would not comment Tuesday as to why Hoffman stole the old motor home or what charges would be filed.

It was not known how many bullets hit the suspect, but one bullet left a hole in a glass balcony door on the second floor of a Spanish-style home at the end of Channel Road. No one was sleeping in the room and residents there declined to comment.

A Newport Beach lifeguard said it was unlikely that anyone was on the beach or surfing at the Wedge at the time of the shooting. “That’s a summer spot, when the waves would be high. So that and it being 6 a.m., that’s pretty early for anybody to be out there,” Gordon Reed said.

The chase began about 4:45 a.m. when a burglar alarm sounded at Alpha Plus Rentals, a motor home storage area at Lycoming Street and Brea Canyon Road in Diamond Bar. Deputies saw the motor home leave the storage area and chased it onto the southbound Orange Freeway.

The driver continued to the eastbound Garden Grove Freeway and switched to southbound Costa Mesa Freeway. He stayed on the freeway as it changes into Newport Boulevard, which leads into Balboa Boulevard and finally into the dead-end Channel Road, officials said.

The suspect drove up to 80 m.p.h. and crashed into two vehicles, which in turn caused six collisions but no injuries, authorities said.

By the time Hoffman reached Channel Road, officers from the police departments of Huntington Beach, Costa Mesa and Newport Beach had joined the chase.

Hoffman then sideswiped a Costa Mesa police car and crashed into sheriff’s cars as he tried to get out of the dead end, authorities said. Officers of those cars tried getting out of the way by diving onto the grass near the water, but Hoffman reportedly continued to gun the motor home’s engine. Fearing he might go after them, other sheriff’s deputies fired at the driver.

Hoffman then barricaded himself inside the motor home for 20 minutes until officers sent a dog from the Huntington Beach Police Department through the driver’s window.