CHP Officer Dies in O.C. Shooting

A California Highway Patrol officer was shot and killed Saturday night when a suspect wrestled away his service revolver during a traffic stop and fired before speeding off in the officer’s patrol car.

Shortly after the 8:45 p.m. shooting near Cal State Fullerton, police took one suspect into custody, but would not say whether they believe he was directly involved in the shooting. One other man was also being held for questioning. Both were found near the officer’s patrol car, which had been abandoned in Anaheim.

But just before midnight, police stepped up the search in the same area using a helicopter with a searchlight, while officers on bicycles fanned out throughout streets and alleys.

Witnesses heard as many as half a dozen gunshots during the incident, which unfolded next to a Coco’s Family Restaurant near the Nutwood Avenue entrance to the Orange Freeway in Fullerton. Fullerton police said at least one shot struck the 26-year-old officer in the head and neck. He died shortly before midnight at UCI Medical Center.

Reports broadcast over police radio frequencies indicated the patrolman was shot with a handgun. They also indicated the officer’s service pistol was missing.

The dead officer is a two-year veteran based in Santa Ana, Deveney said. His father is a recently retired CHP officer, who was based in Riverside. Neither the CHP nor the coroner’s office would identify the officer Saturday night.

Deveney said Fullerton police got a call at 8:54 p.m. of an officer down. When they arrived, they saw the CHP officer lying near a public telephone with a gunshot wound.

Witnesses said they heard six or seven gunshots, and police found at least five spent casings on the ground.

“It sounded like someone was banging on the window or hammering a hammer,” said Kristi Vertican, a waitress at the restaurant.

A restaurant manager who asked not to be named said the shooting occurred after the officer apparently stopped the assailant in a parking lot next door.

One witness said the officer was holding an identification card and what appeared to be the suspect’s traveler’s checks. The witness, who declined to be identified, said he later heard gunshots and looked to see the assailant firing the last shot at the officer, who was already on the ground.

Another witness, Ron DeVries, said the officer had pulled over a white BMW and was searching the trunk while the driver held the steering wheel. When DeVries returned 10 minutes later, he heard gunshots. He saw the suspect driving off in the CHP officer’s car.

A tow truck driver, summoned to tow the BMW before the shooting occurred, said he passed the patrol car fleeing with its lights flashing.

“If I were three minutes earlier, I probably would have been involved,” driver Horace Vega said.

Police were hunting Saturday night for the registered owner of the BMW, identified as Phu Duc Nguyen, 18, of Irvine, in a section of Anaheim where the CHP car was found. Two men were taken into custody near where the car was found in the area of Euclid Street and Lincoln Avenue in Anaheim, but authorities would not identify them.

The fleeing suspect frustrated early attempts to catch him by heading north on the Orange Freeway and then apparently reversing direction before turning onto the Santa Ana Freeway in Anaheim.

The suspect was described as 5-foot-10, 175 pounds, with black hair and wearing a white T-shirt and black pants.

CHP Officer J.L. Perdomo said the two detainees were stopped after authorities blocked off several Anaheim streets less than two miles from Disneyland.

They found the CHP patrol car abandoned at an auto dealership and picked up the two young Asian men who fit the description of the shooter. A security guard from the Coco’s restaurant was brought to the scene to help identify the suspects.

Late Saturday, authorities lined up both suspects against a wall of an auto body shop and shined a spotlight from their cruisers on both men while several witnesses tried to identify them. One suspect wore a sleeveless T-shirt and beige sweatpants and the other wore a white shirt and blue jeans.

Witnesses who were heading to Anaheim to help identify the suspect in custody were still recovering from the incident.

“It was a nightmare,” said Joanne Noyes, who arrived shortly after the shooting to see the officer bleeding on the ground.

The patrolman is the first law enforcement officer to die in the line of duty in Orange County since Newport Beach Officer Robert Henry was shot and killed last year after exchanging gunfire with a man who was found dead by his side.