Deputy Slain as Gunman Sparks Siege

A former police officer with a criminal record and a penchant for firearms allegedly shot and killed a Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy during a wild gun battle Friday, then apparently died in a fire that consumed his house and blackened the sky over a terrified Santa Clarita Valley neighborhood.

Authorities said James Allen Beck, 35, opened fire through his front door after federal agents and two sheriff’s officials tried to serve a search warrant at his home in the Stevenson Ranch development, where crime is rare and fountains gurgle on the front lawns of spacious, Spanish-tiled homes.

“We were attempting to serve a search warrant . . . and the guy opened up on us,” said William Woolsey, a supervisory deputy U.S. marshal. “He opened fire. Automatic weapon fire.”

In doing so, authorities said, Beck started a siege that claimed the life of Sheriff’s Deputy Hagop “Jake” Kuredjian, 40, a popular motorcycle officer who was struck down shortly after responding to a call of shots fired.

The suspect and the authorities exchanged hundreds of rounds of gunfire--shattering some windows and pocking the walls of nearby homes--before sheriff’s deputies blasted as many as 15 tear gas canisters into the Beck home. Top-ranking sheriff’s officials ordered the tear-gas barrage, aiming it at the home’s second story, after Beck allegedly shot Kuredjian from a second-floor window, a spokesman said. The officials also believed the tear gas might force Beck to don a gas mask, making it more difficult for him to fire his weapon accurately. Fire erupted and quickly raged through the two-story building.

As the gunfire ebbed, the roof collapsed and flames and black smoke boiled skyward. Firefighters soaked the roofs of neighboring homes. Later, they trained towering arches of water on the Beck home, which was reduced to a blackened pit of wet, steaming embers.

No other homes caught fire and there were no other injuries, officials said.

A nearby elementary school was locked down and evacuated. Residents in the big homes near the siege found themselves running for safety or cowering in terror. Ashes drifted lazily through the air and armored police assault vehicles roamed the empty streets.

There was no immediate indication that any remains had been found in the ruins of Beck’s house, but authorities said they presumed the suspect had died in the fire.

Although the use of tear gas has controversial associations with fires, a sheriff’s spokesman said investigators did not think the canisters had ignited the fire.

“They believe that the fire was started by the suspect and wasn’t started by tear gas,” said Deputy Harry Drucker.

Officials with two federal agencies, however, said it was not clear how the fire started. “Historically, there have been instances where tear gas started a fire,” said Donald Kincaid, agent in charge of the Southern California division of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.

The ATF and the marshal’s service had executed the search warrant based on suspicions that Beck was impersonating a marshal and was stockpiling a substantial amount of illegal firepower in his house.

Although most neighbors said they found nothing sinister about Beck--”If my life depended on it, I couldn’t pick him out of a crowd,” one said--others had become suspicious and one neighbor called the marshal’s office.

“The neighbor was suspicious because he was telling everybody he was a deputy U.S. marshal,” said Woolsey, the deputy marshal. “He was very flagrant about the abundance of weapons he had in the house. The neighbor was suspicious that he never did anything or [went] to work, so the neighbor called us and asked if we had anyone by that name.”

Jill Stones, who lives on Brooks Circle, across the street and a couple of houses down from Beck, said neighbors had become suspicious of Beck, who moved in last November. Three weeks ago, she said, neighbors called the marshal’s office when they became convinced that Beck was lying about being a marshal.

“Everything he said was baloney,” Stones said.

Neighbors Didn’t Trust the Suspect

The neighbors suspected Beck was a child molester, she said, because he showed interest in going to their children’s birthday parties. “That’s why we started getting on the bandwagon,” she said. “It turned out it was this instead.”

While the neighbors were doing surveillance, she said, “He was nice as anything. We barbecued with him, swam with him. We partied with him, but we didn’t trust him. He was a big storyteller. He said he was a U.S. marshal, but we never saw him go to work.”

Beck, who served briefly as an officer with the Arcadia Police Department, had multiple criminal convictions for crimes that included grand theft, receiving stolen property, burglary and illegal firearms possession, according to court records.

He was fired by the Arcadia Police Department in August 1988, four months before he could complete his 18-month probationary period. Arcadia Police Chief Dave Hinig said Beck was fired for failure to meet departmental standards.

“A lot of people going through the probationary process simply don’t meet the performance standards or our expectations. That was clearly the case here. That’s why we dismissed him,” Hinig said. “It’s kind of like a reporter who can’t spell; they’re clearly not suited for journalism. He was clearly not suited for our law enforcement venue.”

The opposite was said of Kuredjian, whose death--the sixth of a law enforcement officer in California in recent weeks--caused veteran deputies to cry. Sheriff Lee Baca’s voice quavered as he announced the deputy’s death at Henry Mayo Newhall Memorial Hospital.

Kuredjian, 40, was a 17-year veteran of the department who had recently achieved a longtime goal by becoming a motorcycle officer. A colleague said the deputy, who lived and worked in Santa Clarita, had moonlighted as a bodyguard for boxing champion Oscar de la Hoya.

“All the people at the station are in shock,” said Lt. Carl H. Deeley, who worked with him.

Steven Hamburger lives in a home much like Beck’s and directly behind it. He said he was home on a typically quiet morning when, just after 9 a.m., he heard a noise that “sounded like lumber being dropped.” He looked out his window and saw his house surrounded by federal agents and sheriff’s officers, all with guns drawn.

Shortly before, at about 8:30 a.m., eight ATF agents, two deputy U.S. marshals and four sheriff’s deputies had surrounded Beck’s house.

After Beck fired one round, Woolsey said, the officers backed off and Beck yelled, “My girlfriend is coming out through the garage, don’t hurt her.” An unidentified woman emerged from the home, and sheriff’s officials said Friday night that she was being questioned.

Sheriff’s Lt. Ray Peavy said Beck had spoken to his mother by telephone and to his girlfriend before she left the house, telling them he might not be leaving the house alive. With his girlfriend gone, Beck resumed shooting after yelling at the officers not to hurt his dog, Woolsey said.

The marshal said Kuredjian and another deputy arrived a short time later. Kuredjian, on patrol in the area, was shot as he was getting off his motorcycle, which was parked behind a large red sport utility vehicle several houses away from Beck’s home, authorities said.

“Jake was one of first ones to arrive,” said Deeley. “He responded on his motorcycle. He stopped four doors east of the suspect’s house. He took cover behind vehicles and was shot almost immediately after getting here, about two doors east of the house. The deputies at the scene were able to pick him up, carry him down to the end of the street, put him in a radio car and took him to the hospital.”

The gunfire continued, with Beck allegedly firing not only at police on the ground, but at police and news media helicopters.

Frank Fisher, who lives about eight or nine houses from Beck, said he was outside when the shooting began and scurried behind a car. “We were pinned behind the car a good 40 minutes,” he said.

Fisher described Beck as “a loner who kept to himself.”

“He put bars on his windows and had a big old dog for protection,” he said. “He told me and my neighbor he was FBI, he told other neighbors he was a marshal and now we find out he was neither.”

Hamburger, 41, spent the siege clutching his wife in a stairwell in the center of their home.

The neighbors were eventually evacuated, as were about 1,300 pupils at two campuses of the nearby Stevenson Ranch Elementary School. The campuses are about a half-mile from Beck’s house, well within earshot of the gunfire.

“After they heard the gunfire, we told the children there was a real situation and they were safe,” said Bev Knutson, assistant superintendent of the Newhall School District. She said the school carried out its disaster plan as if in an earthquake, making sure all children were inside and then locking the doors. At about 1:45 p.m., 18 school buses, escorted by sheriff’s deputies, carried the children away.

School Praised for Response to Crisis

Parents, while shaken, praised the school for its handling of the incident.

“I could see that everything was OK,” said Jude Orona, who has two sons at the school. “There was a strong police presence.”

The fire, meanwhile, had broken out shortly before noon. It took about 40 minutes before county firefighters, outfitted with bulletproof vests, could get their hose lines in place and begin spraying. By that time, the second floor of Beck’s house was engulfed in flame. Neighbors worried that their homes were in danger.

Terri Gudzin and her husband, Jay, stood in their backyard on the street behind Beck and watched as the flames engulfed his home.

“When you have a fire that close, you don’t want to leave,” Gudzin said.

Los Angeles County firefighters stayed about 100 feet away from the blaze, aiming streams of water not only at Beck’s house but at the two adjacent homes. The firefighters were concerned about getting shot, but also worried that Beck had stored a sizable cache of weapons and ammunition that could explode, spraying the area with bullets.

There was no indication that any such explosions occurred.

By 12:40 p.m., the entire second floor was gutted. At 1:15 p.m., the last wall of the second floor gave way. Some of the SWAT team members began taking off their helmets, apparently convinced that Beck could no longer be a threat.

The fire was declared out shortly after 3 p.m.

Even before the ashes of Beck’s home had cooled, some law enforcement experts had begun questioning the tactics employed in the siege.

Among them was D.P. Van Blaricom, a court certified law enforcement expert and a retired police chief of Bellevue, Wash., who said he thought the officers should have considered backing off once they realized Beck’s door was barricaded.

“Sooner or later, he’s got to come out,” Van Blaricom said. “These situations can take days. But that’s still the best way to resolve it.”

The ATF’s Kincaid, however, insisted that the officers had handled the situation properly. “I don’t think anything went wrong except that you had some moron who had absolutely no respect for human life,” he said. “That’s what went wrong.”

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Contributing to this story were Times staff writers Michael Krikorian, Jose Cardenas, Steve Berry, Anna Gorman, Gregg Krikorian, Annette Kondo and Patricia Ward Biederman.

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MORE INSIDE

Deputy remembered: Co-workers recall fallen deputy as a man who made a difference. A20

Ugly transformation: The suburban dream of Stevenson Ranch becomes a nightmare. A20