An Apparent Suicide in Tustin Occupies Police for 5 Hours
A man’s apparent suicide in a Tustin motel room slowed traffic on the Santa Ana Freeway for nearly five hours Tuesday.
The incident began about 9 a.m. when two Tustin police officers investigated a stolen car found behind Key Lodge, a motel next to the freeway in the 1600 block of El Camino Real.
As they knocked on the door of a motel room to interview potential witnesses, the officers heard a single gunshot inside and withdrew, Tustin Police Lt. Mark Bergquist said.
Over the next five hours, Bergquist said, police evacuated the surrounding motel rooms, brought in special operations units and crisis negotiators and restricted traffic on the Santa Ana Freeway near the Red Hill Avenue offramp to prevent motorists from
getting into a potential line of fire.
When officers finally entered the room about 1:50 p.m., Bergquist said, they found James Brannies, 42, of Hermosa Beach dead from an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound.
“We don’t know yet if it is tied to the auto theft behind the motel,” he said.
“We don’t know a whole lot ... the investigation has just started.”
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