Wild Chase Ends in Shots, Death

In a harrowing start to a school day, Santa Ana police shot and killed a suspected car thief Thursday just doors away from 1,000-student Jefferson Elementary School.

The shooting ended a 10-minute, high-speed car chase over city streets during which frightened parents and other motorists veered from the path of the fleeing suspect and pursuing police.

School officials locked down Jefferson Elementary on Adams Street after the shooting, rushing children who were eating breakfast from the cafeteria into the library. Students being dropped off were put onto buses, Principal Pamela Mayle said.

Only the suspect was injured in the incident, which ended just before 8 a.m. with police gunfire that raked the stolen black Chevy Suburban. One bullet also struck a nearby house but caused no injury. The suspect, Ubaldo Figueroa Jr., 20, of Compton, died at the scene.

No weapon was found, but police said Figueroa rammed police cars during and at the end of the pursuit, and they feared that his escape posed a significant threat.

“The mere fact that he rammed into our officers indicated that the suspect didn’t want to be arrested or end peacefully,” Santa Ana Police Sgt. Baltazar De La Riva said.

Maria Arellano was walking her son to school when the Suburban, tires screeching, pulled onto Spruce Street. She ran into a relative’s home nearby.

“I was so scared,” Arellano said. “I thought he was going to hit me.”

Police said the chase began about 7:45 a.m. when an unidentified man left a Santa Ana house and saw someone driving off in his late-model black Suburban, which he had left running in the driveway. The man hopped into a second car and chased the stolen vehicle, calling police on a cell phone as he drove.

Officers joined in, and Figueroa led them over three miles of Santa Ana streets before he entered the neighborhood surrounding Carl Thornton Park on West Segerstrom Avenue, near Bristol Avenue. He stopped several times during the chase and reversed, ramming his pursuers’ cars, including one driven by the man who owned the Suburban, police said.

Figueroa eventually turned onto Hemlock, a short street of older single-story stucco homes, and drove onto Rita Street, a cul-de-sac. He quickly turned around and raced back out to Hemlock, then turned onto Spruce, another dead-end, police said.

He got part way down the short street before stopping, then backing into a pursuing police car. Turning around, he hit at least one more police vehicle and a civilian car before officers fired at least 17 rounds, shooting through the Suburban’s windshield, police said.

Myrna Garcia, 33, was caught up in the chase. As she drove her daughter to school, the Suburban roared up behind her, police cars in close pursuit.

“He was so close to me, I thought he was going to hit me,” Garcia said. “I decided to make a turn to get out of the way.”

Tom Moses, who lives near the shooting scene, said he heard sirens outside his house and went to investigate.

“He was trapped in a dead-end street,” Moses said. “When he tried to leave, there were three police cars capping off the end of the street.... They did not fire until he started to position his car to go over a curb to get away from them.”

Felipe Luna lives next to Jefferson Elementary with his sister, her husband, and their three children. The children were preparing for school when he heard a helicopter overhead, and gunfire.

Luna said he was in his bedroom and the children were in the dining room. Family members ducked to the floor until the shooting stopped.

“Thank God, no one in my family got hurt,” Luna said. “Everyone is safe.”

Concepcion Araiza was walking her daughter, Raquel, 8, to school, part of a parade of parents bearing cookies and other treats for a celebration on the eve of spring break. After the shooting, Araiza decided to start vacation early.

“They hurried us onto the bus but I was too afraid that the [suspect] might be inside the school, so I took my daughter home,” Araiza said. “I’m very nervous.”

Raquel was shaken by the incident and worried about her brother, a fourth-grader who had left early to have breakfast at school. He was later found safe.

“I’m too scared to go to school today,” Raquel said.

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Times staff writers Mai Tran, Scott Martelle and Dan Weikel also contributed to this report.