LOS ANGELES—Hundreds of California police officers were hunting June 11 for a gunman suspected of opening fire at a police station, wounding a deputy with a shot to the face and killing a transient man with a bullet to the back of his head.
Authorities described being a step behind the suspect, 26-year-old Mason James Lira, since he opened fire at the downtown Paso Robles Police Department before dawn Wednesday. Officials later discovered the body of the transient, who had been shot at close range.
“It’s a wide-ranging, full-on, full-scale effort,” said Tony Cipolla, spokesman for the San Luis Obispo County sheriff. “We’re right behind him. You can’t run forever.”
The search intensified into dawn Thursday in and around Paso Robles, a tourist destination in California’s central coast wine region. Police closed parts of a freeway and used flash-bangs during a search of apartments.
The attacks came just five days after another unlikely California crime location. The community of Ben Lomond in Santa Cruz County farther north, was the scene of an ambush on police.
Santa Cruz sheriff’s Sgt. Damon Gutzwiller, 38, was killed and another deputy was injured Saturday in an attack allegedly carried out by an Air Force sergeant armed with homemade bombs, an AR-15 rifle, and other weapons. Santa Cruz County Sheriff Jim Hart said the suspect, Steven Carrillo, was intent on killing officers.
Carrillo, 32, was arrested and the FBI is investigating whether he has links to the killing of a federal security officer outside the U.S. courthouse in Oakland during a protest against police brutality on May 29. A white van was spotted at both attacks and the FBI is seeking the public’s help to find it.
Prosecutors filed 19 charges Thursday against Carrillo who faces life in prison. He is accused of killing Gutzwiller and attempting to kill four other officers, as well as possessing destructive devices and the components to make others. He is scheduled to be arraigned Friday.
Parkinson said there were no events in the Paso Robles area or imminent arrests by authorities that could have triggered the violence. He also said investigators didn’t know if the attack was connected to anger swelling nationwide at police over the killing of George Floyd while in the custody of Minneapolis police.
“You see what’s happening nationally, you see the riots, you see the looting, you see the acts of violence occurring ... there’s naturally fear as a result of that,” he said. “So trying to calm the community has been our goal.”
In Paso Robles, a gas station clerk reported seeing Lira around 2 a.m. Thursday when he came into the convenience store to buy an energy drink, KSBY reported. The clerk described Lira as being sweaty, exhausted, and mumbling to himself. Lira “seemed crazy” but did not do anything threatening, said the clerk, who called 911 after he left.
Officers and sheriff’s deputies from agencies throughout the region—including the FBI—worked through the night in two-person units.
Authorities have not determined the motive for the attack. But Lira, a transient from the Monterey area, was arrested previously for making terrorist threats, said Cipolla, who could not immediately provide more information about that case.
The events started unfolding around 4 a.m. Wednesday, when Lira fired at police cars as they entered downtown Paso Robles, authorities said.
Two sheriff’s deputies heard gunshots but didn’t see the attacker until they were outside of their patrol car when shots were fired at them. One was hit in the head. His partner returned fire and dragged the deputy to cover behind a police car.
“We feel that this was an ambush, that he planned it, that he intended for officers to come out of the Police Department and to assault them,” said San Luis Obispo County Sheriff Ian Parkinson.
The wounded deputy, Nicholas Dreyfus, 28, was flown to a trauma center and underwent surgery.
“He is listed in guarded condition and his prognosis is good,” a sheriff’s statement said Thursday, adding that the deputy’s wife and family were with him.
Shots were fired at five downtown locations, and some buildings were hit, including a Department of Motor Vehicles office, Parkinson said. Surveillance camera photos from businesses show a young man in a long-sleeved shirt.
While officers searched for Lira, they received a report of a body near the train station and they found the body of a 58-year-old man on the tracks.
He appeared to be a transient who was camping out overnight, Paso Robles Police Chief Ty Lewis said. It wasn’t immediately clear whether he was shot before or after the attack on the police station.
Lewis urged family or friends of the gunman to convince him to surrender. “There’s no need for further bloodshed. There’s no need for further violence in our community,” he said.
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