Police in Palm Springs, California, captured a suspect early Sunday who had opened fire 12 hours earlier on three officers who were trying to negotiate with him after a domestic disturbance call. Two officers were killed and the third was injured.
The suspect reportedly had told his father moments before the shooting that he wanted to kill police officers.
Police said the man fired through a closed door without provocation as the officers were attempting to resolve the situation peacefully.
The officers killed were Lesley Zerebny, 27, and Jose Gilbert “Gil” Vega.
Zerebny had recently returned from maternity leave and was the mother of a 4-month-old. She was married to a Riverside County sheriff’s deputy. A SWAT team from her husband’s department participated in efforts to capture the suspect, and ultimately did so after an exchange of gunfire early Sunday morning, according to a statement from the sheriff’s department.
The department identified the suspect as John Felix, 26, who was treated for non-life-threatening injuries. Felix, reported the Palm Springs Desert Sun, was a “known gang member” with a criminal record.
Vega, a 35-year veteran, was scheduled to retire in December. He had chosen to work overtime Saturday.
They were the first Palm Springs police officers to die in the line of duty since 1962. The department has about 98 officers and prides itself on a community-policing program that Palm Springs Police Chief Jose Bryan Reyes said had succeeded in minimizing violence for years.
The officers were called to the home just after an occupant had rushed across the street in a panic, telling a neighbor that his son had a gun and wanted to shoot police. “He came over and asked for help,” neighbor Frances Serrano told reporters.
“He said: ‘Help. I need help. My son is in the house and he’s crazy. He has a gun. He’s ready to shoot all the police.'”
The man walked back to his house and shortly afterward, Serrano said, she heard repeated gunshots “starting with a loud, I mean really loud, bang.”
Reyes, the police chief, choking back tears and his voice shaking with emotion, told a news conference that the officers responded to a plea from an “adult caller” at 12:18 p.m. local time. The caller said her son was “causing a disturbance.”
As officers were attempting to talk to the man behind the door, he “threatened to shoot the officers” through it. Then he opened fire, gunning down the officers.
“Today Palm Springs lost two brave officers,” Reyes said at the news conference. “They go out every day with their boots on the ground. They gave their all for you.
“… I am awake in a nightmare right now. … If ever there was a time to pray for the Palm Springs police department, it is now.”
Dozens of officers from surrounding jurisdictions responded to an emergency call about 10 minutes after the first one, surrounding the house and sealing off a four-block perimeter, uncertain as to the whereabouts of the shooter and warning residents to stay inside.
“There were police everywhere,” Serrano told reporters. “I looked out the window and saw police with rifles.”
Juan Graciano, 67, who lives a block away, told the Los Angeles Times he saw police attempting to revive Zerebny. “I saw a woman officer who had been laid down in the trunk of a police cruiser. I watched as they picked her up and laid her down on the street and began administering CPR.”
Another neighbor told reporters of hearing more rounds of gunfire that continued for up to 20 minutes. “We stayed indoors,” Georgie Eden told the Times. “It was kind of, pretty scary.”
The Riverside County Sheriff’s department, in a statement, said “the suspect refused to surrender and exchanged gunfire with officers as he barricaded himself in his residence.”
About 12 hours later, the sheriff’s Department issued a statement saying that “after a lengthy standoff, the suspect surrendered” to deputies from a SWAT team. He was identified as Palm Springs resident John Felix. The release said he received non-life threatening injuries and was treated at a local hospital.”
He will be booked on “two counts of murder on a peace officer,” the sheriff’s office said.
The Palm Springs Desert Sun described the suspect as a “known gang member,” who spent four years in prison for a 2009 attempted murder plot. He was also arrested in 2013, the paper said, after fighting with police at the same home where Saturday’s shooting took place.
The officer who was hospitalized was alert and talking, the police chief said.
“They were responding to a simple family disturbance,” Reyes said. The man “elected to open fire.”
(c) 2016, The Washington Post ยท Fred Barbash
