Deadly Shootout Still Echoes for Officer

Sitting in the back of a briefing room, Anaheim Police Officer Tim Garcia talks calmly about the desperate shootout that left him seriously wounded and a suspect dead.

Garcia, 29, had been on the force less than a year when early on Sept. 8, he and two other units responded to a “417” call--man with a gun. He spotted the suspect at a motel near Disneyland, alerted the other officers and gave chase.

Soon, Garcia confronted the man, who sat in a crunched position in a dark parking lot.

“The guy came up shooting,” Garcia recalled. “I don’t remember hearing the bangs. What I remember seeing was a flash coming out of the muzzle of the gun. I remember hearing three quick rounds: Boom. Boom. Boom.

“I was immediately hit in the thigh, then I felt a burning sensation,” Garcia said. “But at the time, that wasn’t what I was concerned with. I was concerned with keeping this guy away.

“In my mind, I was thinking, ‘This can’t be happening. This can’t be real,’ ” Garcia said. “But those thoughts turned quickly to, ‘You better do something and you better do something fast.’ So, I returned fire. I returned fire rather quickly, around 10 rounds. Pretty much as fast as my finger would pull.”

The suspect had been hit and eventually bled to death from a wound to the aorta. But before he died, he and Garcia had a violent struggle. At one point, the man had his gun to Garcia’s head.

“As I grabbed his gun, two shots went off,” Garcia said. “I ended up with residue burns on my right ear. That was the scariest part of the entire incident. Looking back on it now and then, that’s the part that always kind of gets me, that moment.”

Afterward, police learned the suspect had been deported twice and was again in the country illegally at the time of the shooting. Two days after the incident, the Anaheim Police Officers Assn. demanded that an Immigration and Naturalization Service officer be stationed at the city’s jail to find and deport inmates here illegally.

Garcia, who was awarded the department’s Medal of Valor 10 days ago, supports having an INS officer working in the jail. But mainly, the young officer said he just wants to get on with his life, and with the job he loves.

“I don’t want to be known as the guy who got shot,” he said. “I want to be part of the crew. There wasn’t a doubt in my mind that I wanted to come back right away. This is what I love to do.”

After he was shot, Garcia was taken to the hospital, where he underwent surgery. He was not told for a few days that the suspect was killed during the exchange of gunfire.

“There was some sense of relief but it was still hard,” the officer said. “To this day, I feel that this guy made decisions for me and I only reacted to those. I didn’t want to take his life. That’s not why I became a police officer.”

After five months of recuperation and some counseling, Garcia returned to the force.

“The first day was hard,” he said. “There are times when you hear a 417 call or a robbery in progress and you feel a little emotional. But as soon as I get there, that kind of ends. Being a professional and doing what I need to do gets me through.”

The officer also credits strong support from his colleagues and unwavering devotion from his parents and girlfriend.

“That was the biggest part of the healing process,” he said. “That was all I needed.”