Ventura Harbor Officer Shot by Men in Boat

An unarmed deputy harbor master, shot four times by gunmen who fled in an inflatable motorboat, Thursday credited a hand-me-down bulletproof vest with saving his life.

Dave Shapiro was stopping three men who were speeding in a dark-color motorboat at the mouth of the Ventura Harbor late Wednesday, when one of them opened fire, striking Shapiro at close range.

But none of his wounds was serious.

A shot to his chest struck his bulletproof vest and left 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 and another went through his right side just below his underarm. A fourth bullet grazed his shoulder.

“I’m pretty lucky,” said Shapiro, 59, who is three weeks short of retirement.

The motive for the shooting remained murky, and police said they had called off an 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 a light, he pulled alongside the 18-foot-long inflatable and radioed the Ventura 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, more than 6 feet tall and well built, started wrestling with two of the men, both much smaller than he. The armed man fired several more rounds, striking 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 gunman in the face, and the three men jumped in their boat and sped off, Shapiro said.

He was able to call the Ventura Police Department’s dispatch line for help, and then maneuver his patrol vessel to the dock.

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.

Shapiro, a 20-year law enforcement veteran who began working for the harbor patrol in 1989, was shot on duty once before.

That incident occurred at the start of Shapiro’s career when he was working as a police officer in Michigan, he said. He was shot trying to foil an armed robbery. That bullet passed through his body without causing serious damage.

The eight deputy harbor masters in Ventura Harbor are sworn peace officers, but do not carry guns and are trained at the most basic level of police training, said Harbor Master Operations Manager Scott Miller.

The bulletproof vest that Shapiro was wearing when he was shot was a hand-me-down from the Ventura Police Department, which donated a vest for each of the deputy harbor masters.

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.

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.

After the shooting, the Sheriff’s Department and the U.S. Coast Guard aided in the search, using two helicopters with night-vision capabilities, Ventura police said.

Although the helicopters suspended the search early Thursday, officials in harbors up and down the coast have been notified about the men and their boat, said Ventura police spokesman Lt. Carl Handy.

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

Handy said department officials still “had no idea” why the men fired at Shapiro.

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

Anyone with information about the shooting should call Ventura Sgt. George Morris at 805-339-4474.