Witnesses Say Suspect Was Surrendering

A day after the shooting of an unarmed, suspected drug dealer, Santa Ana police officials on Wednesday answered questions raised by witnesses who said the 23-year-old man was surrendering when officers opened fire.

Authorities allege that Santiago Valencia Ayala was carrying a flashlight that police mistook for a gun as he approached officers inside a dimly lit home in the 800 block of West Camille Street.

But residents of the home said Ayala was gunned down while empty-handed, shuffling toward police with his arms by his side while officers screamed at him to raise his hands, resident Juan Martinez said.

“The police said he had a light in his hand but I never saw one,” Martinez said. “I never saw him lift his hands.”

Police officials, however, cast doubt on Martinez’s account, saying other witnesses told investigators they saw Ayala point a heavy-duty flashlight at officers.

“We have witness statements . . . from people who say clearly that he was holding a metal object when he was shot,” Santa Ana Police Lt. George Saadeh said.

Ayala was struck twice in the chest, and remained in critical condition Wednesday at a local hospital.

At least eight other rounds fired by police ripped through the home’s dining room wall, a mirror and a kitchen cabinet while an elderly resident was in a bedroom just feet away.

The shooting followed a brief but wild foot chase through backyards, over fences and eventually into the home on Camille Street, a few blocks south of downtown. The chase began when officers tried to stop Ayala, whom they believed was selling drugs, Saadeh said.

From there, events remain in dispute.

Martinez, 73, said he was sitting on his living room couch when he suddenly saw a young man dart into his home and hide under a table. Martinez recognized Ayala, a neighborhood boy he knew well enough to acknowledge when they saw each other. Then he heard police calling outside.

Martinez said as he went out to investigate, officers ushered him out the front door. He said he watched the shooting unfold from behind two officers on the home’s front porch.

The retired salesman said he was so close to the officers that spent bullet casings from their weapons struck him on the forehead as the gunfire erupted.

Martinez’s son, Felix, said he was asleep in one of the home’s bedrooms but was awakened by the shots. He opened his bedroom door, saw Ayala and approached him to help, but officers told him to stop, he said.

“They were yelling at the boy to ‘Get Up! Get Up!’ But he couldn’t get up,” Felix Martinez, 35, said. “We could see the blood on him and he was hit in the shoulder and in the stomach area and he told them, ‘Kill me. I’m . . . I can’t move.’ ”

He said he did not see any objects in Ayala’s hands. And he criticized the decision by police to open fire while he and his mother slept in the home.

“They could have shot and the bullet could have careened off the wall and killed my mother,” he said.

But authorities painted a very different picture of Tuesday morning’s events on Camille Street.

Officers, Saadeh said, did everything they could to ensure that no one inside the home was hurt. He said almost everyone was ushered outside before the shooting. Juan Martinez’s bedridden wife was left inside because officers did not realize she was there, he said.

“I can tell you that the officers did everything they could to get everyone who was in the living areas . . . out of the house, and they did so at some peril to themselves,” Saadeh said. “This thing went down fairly quickly.”

Saadeh said the Martinezes are mistaken to think that Ayala was empty-handed. Their account is contradicted by others who gave statements to investigators, though he declined to say whether those other witnesses were neighbors or officers involved in the shooting.

The officers on the front porch could have blocked the Martinez family’s view of Ayala, he said. Even officers looking inside the home had difficulty seeing inside the darkened living room, Saadeh said.

“They may not have seen him hold something at the beginning but not necessarily when the shooting occurred,” Saadeh said. “We have recovered the flashlight and we know that at the time of the shooting the officers saw it in his hands.”

Officials are trying to determine who owns the flashlight found at the scene.

Police officials refused to immediately disclose the names of the officers involved in the shooting. Saadeh said the names of the officers will be released in the near future, but only after the department determines whether disclosing the names will hinder the investigation.

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Times staff writer Mai Tran contributed to this report.