Police cleared in killing of O.C. woman

Two Huntington Beach police officers who shot to death an 18-year-old woman carrying a knife last summer acted properly, Orange County Dist. Atty. Tony Rackaukas announced Thursday.

The Aug. 25 death of Ashley MacDonald led to a weeklong protest outside police headquarters, with supporters saying the officers should have found a nonlethal way to subdue a 120-pound woman who was carrying a 4-inch blade.

Rackaukas said he initially shared concerns that “it looked pretty bad” but said a review of the evidence showed a “clear-cut case” that officers Read Park and Shawn Randell acted properly.

“It turned into a situation where they were really left with no other choice,” Rackaukas said.

The officers, according to the investigation by the Sheriff’s Department and district attorney’s office, were forced into a split-second decision to kill a woman who was far more dangerous than was depicted in news reports.

When she was shot shortly before 8 a.m., MacDonald had finished a night of partying that had left her increasingly dangerous and erratic, said David Brent, one of two assistant district attorneys who led the review of the case.

Her mother, Lisa Guy, told investigators MacDonald returned home at 6 a.m. and said she had been slipped a date rape drug and been sexually assaulted, Brent said.

The women argued, and MacDonald poked Guy in the stomach with a knife and cut across her arms, leaving a superficial wound on the mother’s wrist, Brent said.

MacDonald left the apartment and appeared at 7 a.m. at the door of a friend who told law enforcement authorities that MacDonald was clutching a knife and “had those wild-looking eyes staring deathly at you,” according to Brent.

Shortly thereafter, another person saw MacDonald stabbing a telephone pole in Sunview Park, adjacent to MacDonald’s apartment, Brent said.

Another person was confronted by MacDonald at 7:45 a.m. He screamed, believing he was in danger, and ran away, Brent said.

Minutes later, officers Park and Randell responded to a 911 call reporting a woman with a knife. They ordered MacDonald to give up her weapon. “Drop the knife, honey,” they said, according to Brent. MacDonald told them, “I’m on drugs, just ... kill me.” She then ran toward the officers and was shot 15 times when she came within 8 to 10 feet of one of them, Brent said.

At the time of the shooting, an officer nearby was loading a gun with nonlethal pepper-spray pellets and a fourth officer was rushing to the scene with beanbag ammunition.

An autopsy showed that MacDonald was under the influence of methamphetamines, Brent said. Investigators also found no evidence she was sexually assaulted and found no traces of other drugs in her system.

The district attorney’s office said this wasn’t a case of insufficient evidence against the officers but that it clearly met the standard for a justifiable killing.

The office would not release the names of witnesses used to construct the account, citing privacy concerns, and said none of them contradicted the officers’ account that MacDonald was running toward them when they fired.

In the days following the shooting, witness Patrick Carignan told several reporters, including one from The Times, that MacDonald appeared to be turning to the side to run away when she was shot and that police had acted improperly. He could not be reached Thursday.

Authorities could not remember an Orange County police officer or sheriff’s deputy ever being charged in an on-duty killing.

“Tony Rackaukas and the district attorney’s office are not interested in the truth,” said Jerry Steering, the attorney Guy hired to pursue a wrongful-death claim against the Huntington Beach Police Department. “They are manufacturing all of this.”

garrett.therolf@latimes.com