Youth Killed During Police Raid

A middle-of-the-night raid of a suspected drug house erupted into violence Friday when a Huntington Beach police officer shot and killed a 17-year-old who had been sleeping on the living room floor, police said.

Police said the officer fired when the teen defied an order to remain still and made a suspicious move, seemingly grasping for an unseen weapon.

No weapon was found at the scene, Santa Ana Police Lt. Robert Helton said.

It was 2:15 a.m. when eight officers with a search warrant rammed their way into the home in the 1200 block of West McFadden Avenue in search of chemicals used to produce methamphetamine. Police did not name the dead teen, but family members identified him as Ulizes Zambrano and said he had been asleep on the floor near the entrance.

The teen was shot once, in the chest, and died at the scene, Helton said. The family contends Ulizes, who did not speak English, moved only in panic. But police said officers shouted in English and Spanish when banging on the door and got no answer, so they used a battering ram to enter.

None of the nine other people at the home were arrested, and police said they are trying to determine whether the residents were involved in drug activity. The name of the officer who fired the fatal shot was not released.

It was the second time in three weeks that a Santa Ana teen was killed after defying a police officer’s order. A Santa Ana police officer shot Joseph Pulido, also 17, on Dec. 21 as he fled from a routine stop. A source close to the investigation said the officer’s account is that Pulido aimed a gun at him.

The district attorney’s office is investigating both shootings, a routine procedure.

Helton said the Friday morning raid yielded two pounds of ephredine, an ingredient used to cook methamphetamine, also known as speed or crank on the street. The search was part of a major drug investigation that began two months ago and led police from Cypress, Buena Park and Huntington Beach and state Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement agents to homes in two counties.

The night’s operation began at 9:45 p.m. Thursday in rural Fontana. Investigators said they converged on a 4-acre ranch, where they found a small horse shed housing a store of chemicals and several “cooking” devices capable of manufacturing as much as 150 pounds of methamphetamine a week.

“It was a sophisticated lab,” said Fred Martino, a supervising agent with the Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement in Riverside County. “They were putting out hundreds of thousands of dollars of methamphetamine a week.”

Agents at the ranch arrested Jose Leon Casas, a 48-year-old Mexican national, on suspicion of running the lab. Investigators said they believe that the lab had been functioning for about two months and that widespread chemical contamination in the area indicated a large volume of drugs had been produced.

“This is a major clandestine lab with links to San Bernardino, Riverside and Orange counties,” Martino said. “There were obvious links to Mexico because we found containers that can only be purchased in Mexico.”

Investigators said information obtained at the ranch led police to two Santa Ana homes, the house on McFadden Avenue and a home in the 1600 block of South Van Ness Avenue. Both residences had drawn the attention of police before, Martino said.

“During the initial investigations with Orange County, the addresses in Santa Ana kept turning up. After the bust, we had to roll back there and recover some of the evidence to link together the information,” Martino said.

Investigators said they contacted a judge to obtain a late-night search warrant and then headed to the McFadden address just before 2 a.m. Friday.

Search warrants usually are not served after 10 p.m., a policy meant to ensure the safety of the public and officers, Cypress Police Lt. John Schaefer said. But Schaefer said that policy is set aside if police believe a delay might compromise an investigation.

Along with nighttime raids come the risk of startling or confusing a resident.

“A judge will not issue a nighttime endorsement unless there’s a cause to do so,” Schaefer said. “Oftentimes it is issued because there is a fear evidence might be moved. For instance, the suspects may think police are on to them so they hide the evidence.”

Schaefer said the officer who opened fire Friday feared for his safety when the teenager made an unexpected movement.

Police also found nine other people on the property, including two children. Some of the occupants were sleeping in the garage on mattresses, Helton said.

Investigators said they seized two pounds of ephredine, a powdery substance used to manufacture meth, from a bedroom at the McFadden home, Helton said. Nothing was seized from the house on Van Ness.

A 15-year-old cousin said he and the rest of the family was sleeping when police barged in. He said he thinks his cousin panicked.

“He never got in trouble before,” the cousin said. “He didn’t understand English and moved to get up when it all happened.”

Family members said Ulizes came to the United States by himself about six months ago. He worked as a janitor at an office building in Irvine, a paycheck stub indicated.

Bertha Esquivel, 23, another cousin, said Ulizes worked the night shift from 6 p.m. to midnight and had returned home about 1 a.m. before the shooting occurred.

“He was a good kid,” said Esquivel, who does not live at the home. “He didn’t like to go out because he was scared of the gangs and police.”

The Huntington Beach officer who shot the teen will be placed on a three-day administrative leave, a routine procedure in officer-involved shootings, Huntington Beach Police Officer Mike Kelly said.

“Even in the most justified of shootings, the officer knows there will be an onslaught of media attention and scrutiny, and then the civil proceedings that invariably come these days,” Kelly said. “It’s something that can affect an officer’s life for five to 10 years.”

The Huntington Beach Police Department has a policy of referring officer-involved shootings to the Orange County Sheriff’s Department for an independent investigation.

This case, however, is being investigated by the district attorney’s office, which has a similar agreement with Santa Ana police. Kelly said the location of the shooting and the presence of multiple agencies led to the decision to involve the district attorney.