Suspect Slain in Orange Parking Lot After Chase

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, police 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 4-Runner and, with their moves broadcast live on 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, who was sitting in a restaurant 50 feet from the scene, said, “It sounded like a pack of firecrackers” when officers opened fire. “No matter how bad they had him boxed in, he kept trying to get away.” At least 14 bullet casing markers lay on the ground afterward.

Police had not released the man’s name by late Wednesday. But the owner of the 4-Runner, 35-year-old Hong Ki Kim, 35, of Buena Park, told reporters that he believed the dead man was his brother, 27-year-old Hong Il Kim, who had borrowed the car Sunday and not returned it.

The younger Kim had arrived from South Korea last Friday to vacation and visit his family, in part because his father recently underwent surgery, his brother said.

The younger Kim used to live in Orange County, but his family encouraged him to go back to South Korea because he was struggling with a drug problem, Hong Ki Kim said. In South Korea, he was working in the transportation business.

Hong Ki Kim saw television footage of the shooting.

“It’s not the best way” he said of the shooting. “He didn’t have a weapon. He didn’t have a gun. . . . All my family members feel so sad.” His sister added, “For me, there’s no reason to shoot like that.”

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

Kim did not say where his brother had been going with the car, but said he had expected him to return shortly on Sunday.

“He said he was coming back soon,” he said. “We were going to pray together.”

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 red 4-Runner and found “something wrong with the plate,” Browne said.

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

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

“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 the intersection of Chapman Avenue and Newport Boulevard, the fleeing driver turned into Orange Canyon Village, a small shopping center behind a facade that resembles a Western town.

At one point, a Westminster officer ran up to the 4-Runner and tried to break the passenger-side window with the butt of his gun, said Jamie Solt-Stewart, 36, a bystander. The driver continued zig-zagging in the parking lot to escape police, sideswiping various police cars about seven times, witnesses said.

About 30 minutes and 40 miles after the chase began, the 4-Runner was coerced into a parking space between two cars. Police again surrounded it and ordered the driver to surrender. Instead, he accelerated toward two plain-clothes Orange officers backed by a concrete wall, police and witnesses said.

They and two other officers, one from Westminster and one from the CHP, all opened fire, Browne said.

In the commotion, officers ordered bystanders to “Get back!” and “Get down!” Some ran across the parking lot to seek safety. Others hid behind cars or flung themselves on the ground.

“The thoughts of stray bullets were going through my mind and I just hit the floor,” said Chad Pearson, 24, of Orange.

When Pearson looked up, he said, he saw the vehicle riddled with bullet holes and the man in it with at least one shot in the head.

“His T-shirt was all ripped up because of the bullet holes,” Pearson said.

Witnesses said dozens of shoppers had been strolling in the village, with its water tower, ‘50s diner and flower stand selling pastel tulips, when the chase passed them like a rushing wind.

Some witnesses who had stopped to run a quick errand would end up waiting for five hours to be interviewed by police. The parking lot was taped off while detectives combed the area for evidence, leaving others unable to move their cars.

“I live up in the [Orange] hills and just came down here to run an errand,” Solt-Stewart said. “All of a sudden, there was this red Blazer-type vehicle streaking into the parking lot, followed by a bunch of black-and-whites.”

While several police cars were trying to box in the 4-Runner, other officers formed a semicircle in front of the vehicle, said Pearson, who ran outside his office when he heard the sounds of about three helicopters overhead.

“They were all pointing their guns at the driver . . . from about 10 feet away,” he said.

Witnesses said they heard a burst of gunfire, estimated at 10 to 15 shots.

Police did not immediately know how many shots were fired. No gun was found in the driver’s car. An autopsy is scheduled today.

Police said they did not shoot at the man’s tires because “frequently, you have on that type of a vehicle radial steel-belted tires,” Browne said. “Bullets may not penetrate those tires and bounce off of them, hitting innocent bystanders.

The incident is under investigation by the district attorney’s office, as is routine in officer-involved shootings. Various police departments and the CHP will also conduct their own internal investigation.