Man Questioned After Crime Spree Shoots Self

A Huntington Beach man believed to be responsible for a crime spree that included shooting into two apartment buildings killed himself moments after being questioned by police, authorities said Monday.

During a routine patrol about 1:30 a.m. Sunday, a Huntington Beach police officer found Mitchell Bruce Koppel sitting in his car in the library parking lot at 7111 Talbert Ave., said Lt. Luis Ochoa. The officer talked briefly with Koppel and then returned to his patrol car to report his findings.

As the officer returned to ask a few more questions, Koppel, 37, drew a .357 Magnum and shot himself, Ochoa said. The officer was uninjured, he said.

Police believe Koppel, who maintained residences in Long Beach and Huntington Beach, was responsible for a crime spree that began when he allegedly struck his Long Beach apartment manager with a baseball bat and then set two Long Beach apartments on fire early Friday morning.

Koppel then drove to Huntington Beach and shot into a building in the 17100 block of Springdale Street about 4:20 a.m. and into a building in the 6700 block of Warner Avenue about 4:30 a.m., police said.

The fatality was the latest in a string of unusual shootings that have unnerved Huntington Beach residents.

A Huntington Beach man died Monday at UCI Medical Center in Orange after being shot in the head when a bullet tore through a bedroom window. Alberto Mendez Olmedo, 23, was sitting on a bed in an apartment in the 17400 block of Dairyview Circle about 2 a.m. Sunday when he was hit. There are no suspects in the killing, Lt. Chuck Thomas said.

In another outbreak of violence--a gang-related shooting that took the life of an 18-year-old man--two other victims were released from UCI Medical Center, police said. The males, ages 28 and 17, were both shot in the leg.

Police are revealing little about the shooting that took place about 6 p.m. Sunday in the 17200 block of Keelson Lane. Two suspects in the shooting led police on a brief high-speed chase that ended when their car smashed into a wall. Police are not releasing the name of the slain man until his relatives can be notified, and they have not yet identified the suspects.

Anyone with information about the shootings is asked to call police at (714) 375-5066.