Wounded Harbor Officer Calls Vest a Lifesaver

Crediting his hand-me-down bulletproof vest with saving his life, Deputy Harbor Master Dave Shapiro nursed his gunshot wounds Thursday at home with his wife and family at his side.

Just three weeks short of his retirement, Shapiro, 59, was shot four times--taking at least one direct hit to the chest area of his vest--by three gunmen in a dark inflatable motorboat at the mouth of the Ventura Harbor.

None of the wounds caused serious injury.

“I’m pretty lucky,” Shapiro said, drinking a beer and sitting in the sun room in the back of his home.

The shot to his chest struck his bulletproof vest and left only a large bruise.

Two other bullets--all from a .25 caliber handgun--passed through his body without striking any major organs. One went through his thigh, one went through his right side just below his underarm, and another grazed his shoulder.

The motive for the shooting remains murky, and police said they have called off the intensive ocean search for the three men--one in his 40s and the other two in their 20s-- who escaped on the water.

The incident began about 8 p.m. Wednesday when Shapiro noticed the boat speeding through the water without its running lights.

Turning on his blue strobe light, he pulled alongside the 18-foot-long inflatable and radioed the harbor master office, but no one was in.

“I was pretty much on my own but it seemed like a routine stop,” he said.

As he was writing down the registration numbers on the side of the boat, he noticed one of the men climbing onto his patrol boat and then heard a shot.

“If I was in a better position I just would have dove into the water and swum away, but I couldn’t get to that side of the boat,” he said. “I just thought to myself, ‘Hey, I’m not going to go out that way’ and I went after them.”

Shapiro, who is more than 6 feet tall, started wrestling with two of the men, who were both smaller. The armed man fired several more rounds, hitting Shapiro.

“It felt kind of like getting kicked or hit with a baseball bat,” he said. “But I didn’t know I had gotten shot at the time.”

He managed to kick the man with the gun in the face, and the three men jumped in their boat and sped away, Shapiro said.

He called the Ventura Police Department’s dispatch line for help and then motored his patrol vessel to the dock.

“And I got to tell you, they really saved my ass,” he said. “They had an ambulance there waiting and the police right away.”

Shapiro’s wife, Diane, and daughter, Cheryl Sullivan, said they heard the helicopters and the police sirens and went to the harbor right away.

“I’m just very thankful that he’s all right,” Diane Shapiro said.

A lover of boats and the ocean, Shapiro said he started working as a part-time deputy harbor master in 1989 and went to full-time work in 1991.

Shapiro has been in law enforcement for more than 20 years, working for sheriff’s departments in Santa Barbara and Phoenix, and serving in a city police department for a short time in Michigan.

Shapiro was shot once before, more than 20 years ago while trying to foil an armed robbery as a police officer in Michigan.

In that incident, the bullet also passed through his body without doing any damage, he said.

Shapiro said he hoped Wednesday’s shooting would bring to people’s attention that the deputy harbor masters provide an important service. The harbor master’s budget has been cut by the Ventura Port District, Shapiro said, and there has been serious discussion about eliminating the service.

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They are sworn peace officers, but the eight deputy harbor masters in Ventura Harbor do not carry guns and receive the most basic level of police training, said harbor master operations manager Scott Miller.

The bulletproof vest Shapiro had on was a hand-me-down from the Ventura Police Department, which donated a vest for each deputy.

The deputy harbor masters patrol the harbor and enforce boating regulations. Most of their work involves rescuing stranded boaters or struggling swimmers.

The only defensive weapon they carry is pepper spray, Miller said.

“Mostly we’re dealing with boating safety issues, speeding, boating too close to the surf line, improper registration or equipment,” Miller said. “Sometimes we’re dealing with local ordinances--land laws--but mostly it’s things like public drunkenness or violations of the leash laws.”

Sitting in the harbor master tower that overlooks the harbor entrance, Miller said that in his 17 years on the job he cannot remember a single violent encounter.

“Probably the most violent thing that we deal with is someone who’s become belligerent because they’ve had too much to drink,” he said. “In my time here I think we’ve had perhaps two shoving matches but we never had anything more violent than that.”

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Rumors spread quickly through the tightknit harbor community about what the three men were up to when Shapiro stopped them. Many residents called the harbor master’s office to express concern for Shapiro.

“We’ve just had a tremendous outpouring of support,” Miller said.

Officials from the Ventura Police Department said that after the shooting, crews from the Sheriff’s Department and the U.S. Coast Guard aided in the search, using two helicopters with night-vision capabilities.

Investigators with the Ventura Police Department are using as many resources as they can to find the culprits, said department spokesman Lt. Carl Handy.

Although the helicopters suspended their search early Thursday, officials in harbors up and down the coast have been notified to keep an eye out for the men and their boat, said Handy.

“They could be anywhere right now,” he said.

Handy said department officials still “had no idea” why the men opened fire on Shapiro.

Police officers who work the Ventura Harbor beat said it is generally a quiet area with very few major crimes.

“It’s really just like any other community in the city except we have people living on the water, and because of the fishing industry we have people coming and going 24 hours a day,” said Senior Officer Jeff Killion, who is assigned to patrol the harbor.

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Although there has long been speculation by residents that the harbor has been used to smuggle drugs, other contraband and illegal immigrants, Killion said there has yet to be any proof of such activities.

On Thursday, about a half dozen detectives canvassed the harbor area, interviewing anyone that may know something about the incident, officials said.

Anyone with information about the suspects should call Sgt. George Morris at 339-4474.