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originally published at www.pressdemocrat.com

High-speed chase ends in fatal shooting outside mall

By JEREMY HAY
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

Published: Tuesday, June 1, 2010 at 5:16 p.m.

A Sonoma County sheriff’s deputy shot and killed a man who led deputies on a high-speed chase across north Santa Rosa on Tuesday evening before slamming his car into a light pole outside Coddingtown Mall.

The Santa Rosa Police Department is investigating the case under a countywide protocol in which outside agencies investigate officer-involved shootings.

The investigation shut down Guerneville Road at West Steele Lane for much of the night as police collected evidence at the scene.

The name of the suspect was withheld while investigators attempted to confirm his identity and notify his family, sheriff’s Lt. Chris Spallino said in a statement issued late Tuesday.

The incident began at about 4:52 p.m. when a female called for help at the La Mancha Apartments in Larkfield. The female said she was confronted by her ex-boyfriend, whom she suspected of stealing jewelry, Spallino said. She told the dispatcher that her ex-boyfriend had assaulted her several days earlier, and added that he was armed with a knife at that time.

As a deputy arrived at the apartment complex, he spotted the suspect heading south on Old Redwood Highway, Spallino said.

“The deputy initiated a vehicle pursuit as the suspect attempted to evade him by driving at speeds over 90 miles per hour, and passing on the left and right of other vehicles,” Spallino said.

The chase ended 3½ miles later, when the suspect crashed his Volvo station wagon into a light pole on Guerneville Road outside Coddingtown Mall.

The suspect got out of his vehicle and confronted one of the deputies, Spallino said.

“The suspect acted in a threatening manner that caused the deputy to fear for his safety, and the safety of others in the area,” Spallino said. “The deputy fired his pistol at the suspect to stop the threat, striking him at least once in the chest.”

One witness, who observed the events through a window of Sonoma County Library’s northwest Santa Rosa branch, said she saw the man reach one hand behind himself after getting out of the car and then bring his hand back out toward the deputies, at which point he was shot.

Rosa Hernandez said she was in the library when she heard a “boom” and ran to the window to see sheriff’s cruisers screech to a halt beside a white Volvo station wagon that had crashed into a pole on the southeast corner of the intersection.

“I saw the man step out of his vehicle. I saw one of the sheriff’s barricade him in (with his patrol car), and the suspect went to reach for something behind his back. I don’t know what he went to reach for,” said Hernandez, 32, of Santa Rosa.

“And then he went to do this,” Hernandez said, pretending to pull something from behind her back and pointing it, “and they shot him twice.”

She said the man began to run and was shot again, falling to the ground “like slow motion,” she said.

She said she did not see anything in the man’s hand when he pulled it forward.

Tuesday evening, a pile of what appeared to be bloodied clothing lay on the ground near a sheriff’s patrol car.

Hernandez and other witnesses said that both deputies and paramedics who arrived soon after performed CPR on the man. The suspect was taken by ambulance to Sutter Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

A few hours after the incident, which took place shortly before 5 p.m., a Santa Rosa Fire Department ladder truck was used to take aerial photographs of the scene while investigators clustered on the street below.

Santa Rosa resident Debbie Britton said she was stopped at a traffic light on Fountain Grove Parkway at Mendocino Avenue when she saw the chase under way.

Pointing at the Volvo, the front of which was crumpled against the pole, Britton, 55, said: “That car flew through the intersection, it must have been going 70 or 80 miles per hour.”

She said the car was pursued by both sheriff’s and Santa Rosa police patrol cars.

Deborah Black of Santa Rosa said she was in the Coddingtown parking lot when the chase came to its dramatic end.

“I seen a police chase and that white station wagon ran a red light,” Black, 48, said. “I seen the police chasing, and then I heard a big boom. And then I heard three shots.”

She said she ran into a nearby Big 5 sporting goods store at the sound of the shots.

“It just gave me flashbacks because I’m from the streets of Miami,” Black said. “That’s why I left Miami. I never knew it would happen in Santa Rosa like that. If you have police on your tail, you should just stop, take your medicine.”

There have been 29 officer-involved shootings in Sonoma County since 1999, according to records compiled by the Sonoma County branch of the NAACP, said Ann Gray Byrd, the branch president.

The last incident involving a fatal shooting by the Sheriff’s Office is believed to have been in 2008, when deputies in Sonoma shot Craig Von Dohlen 10 times after responding to a 911 call from his father, who said his son was suicidal and threatening him.