Officer Kills Suspect in 2 Slayings

An Anaheim man was shot to death in a local parking lot Tuesday after he allegedly pulled a gun on a Corona police investigator trying to question him about a double slaying in Riverside County, police said.

The man, who was not identified by police, was shot by the plainclothes detective who approached him about 2 p.m. in the 300 block of East Cerritos Avenue, in an indoor swap meet parking lot next to the Sav-On warehouse where the suspect worked, according to police and witnesses.

No officers were injured in the confrontation.

The suspect was being sought in connection with the shooting deaths of two women found in a Corona home earlier Tuesday, according to Corona Police Lt. Roy Vanderkallen. The victims, who were identified only as Corona residents, were a 20-year-old woman and her grandmother, police said.

The bodies were discovered about 10 a.m. by relatives returning home from working a night shift, police said.

What Vanderkallen called “investigative information,” collected either at the scene of the shootings in the 2100 block of Adrienne Street or from the relatives who discovered the bodies, led investigators to the Anaheim man.

An employee of American Drug Stores, a parent company owning the Sav-On warehouse, said the suspect was a warehouse worker named Juan Hugo Gonzales who called Tuesday afternoon to quit his job.

The supervisor who took the call had been contacted by Corona police earlier in the day and told the employee he should come by work to pick up his final paycheck.

The supervisor then called Corona detectives, who rushed to the warehouse to await the suspect, according to the American Drug employee, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The suspect apparently saw the pair of detectives and, as he crossed through the Anaheim Marketplace parking lot toward the warehouse, began waving a gun, the employee said. The employee said he thought the gunman was shot three times.

The Orange County district attorney’s office was investigating the shooting, a routine procedure in officer-involved shootings.

Police declined to comment on any relationship or suspected motive that might have sparked the violence. They said the suspect was about 30 years old.

Corona Police Sgt. Kelly Evans said five detectives were present when the suspect was confronted, but only one opened fire after the suspect refused to drop his weapon. It was not clear if the suspect fired his weapon, Vanderkallen said.

The suspect was dead when Anaheim officers arrived, according to Anaheim Lt. Ted Labahn.