Man Shot to Death After Trying to Run Over Officers, Police Say

As a crowd of workers and shoppers ducked and gasped, police Wednesday directed a fatal torrent of gunfire at a man who tried to run them over in a strip mall after leading more than a dozen officers through four cities at speeds up to 100 mph, authorities said.

Uniformed and undercover officers in two vans and five patrol cars chased the driver into the parking lot of the Orange Canyon Village shopping center, boxed his Toyota 4-Runner into a parking space and shooed away shoppers drawn to the commotion. With guns drawn, four officers approached the vehicle and, with their moves broadcast live on local television, opened fire when the driver gunned the accelerator, police and witnesses said.

“He was going to drive [two officers] right into a wall. He left them with virtually no option,” said Lt. Timm Browne of the Orange Police Department.

Craig Pierce was sitting in a restaurant 50 feet from the scene. “No matter how bad they had him boxed in, he kept trying to get away,” he said.

At least 14 bullet casings lay on the ground afterward, according to police markers.

The man, in his 20s or 30s, has not been identified, but police said the owner of the vehicle, Hong Ki Kim of Buena Park, lent the car to his younger brother a few days ago. Police could not confirm whether the dead man was the 27-year-old brother, Hong Il Kim, who arrived from South Korea last week.

The chase began about 11:30 a.m. near Beach Boulevard and Hazard Street in Westminster, where a police officer checked the license plate of the vehicle and found “something wrong with the plate,” Browne said.

When the officer tried to pull him over, the driver accelerated, leading the officer to Huntington Beach and onto the Garden Grove Freeway from Bolsa Chica Road, police said.

Officers from the California Highway Patrol, the Orange Police Department and the Sheriff’s Department joined the high-speed chase through their jurisdictions.

“He drove on the wrong side of the road and blew several red lights,” Browne said. “He rammed into several civilian vehicles in the process.”

At Chapman and Newport avenues, the fleeing driver turned into Orange Canyon Village.

Mike Betam, who was sitting in a nearby Italian restaurant, said police vehicles rammed into the suspect’s car several times, trying to stop him.

With the vehicle boxed in, four officers got out and trained their guns on the driver, ordering him to get out.

Instead, he accelerated toward two of them, both plainclothes Orange officers whose backs were against a concrete wall, police and witnesses said. They and two other officers, one from Westminster and one from the CHP, opened fire, Browne said.

In the commotion, other officers ordered bystanders to get away or to get down. About 20 people flung themselves on the ground. Witnesses said they heard between 10 and 15 shots.

“If the vehicle is trying to run you over, yes, you consider it a dangerous weapon, “ said CHP spokeswoman Angel Johnson.

The district attorney’s office is investigating.