Shooting suspect was accessory in Mountain View double murder
SACRAMENTO >> The suspect in a transit clash that ended with a Sacramento County Sheriff’s deputy being shot in the face is a San Jose native who was an accessory in a Mountain View doubleslaying nine years ago, according to authorities and court records.
Nicory Marquis Spann, 27, was arrested Tuesday night in connection with a fight with Deputy Alex Ladwig that occurred at a Regional Transit light rail station near Watt Avenue and Interstate 80 in Sacramento. Authorities say Ladwig was shot with his own service weapon.
Ladwig, a four-year deputy who worked the transit detail, underwent surgery for a gunshot wound to his jaw and is in stable condition, according to the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department. Late Tuesday night, Spann was arrested at an area motel.
In 2009, Spann pleaded no contest to charges of receiving stolen property and being accessory after the fact to the June 28, 2008 killings of siblings Omar Aquino, 24, and Maria Teresa Aquino, 27, who were both shot during a homeinvasion robbery on Plymouth Avenue in Mountain View. The shootings occurred while the elder Aquino’s 8-year-old son slept in a bedroom.
Spann was initially charged with murder, but those charges were dropped around the time he entered his plea to the lesser crimes. His attorney said at the time that Spann was not in the home when the killings took place.
He was sentenced to 16 months in prison with credit for time served. The resolution of that murder case came just six months ago, more than eight years after the killings.
In a San Jose courtroom in December, ringleader Kenneth Thomas and codefendants Michael Adams and Eric Williams were each found guilty of two counts of murder. Three co-conspirators reached plea deals and are serving prison sentences, while a murder case against one of Thomas’ sisters, who was 17 at the time of the killings, is pending.
Tuesday, Ladwig was patrolling the Sacramento light rail station when he first radioed to say he was in a fight with a suspect near the light rail platform, and minutes later radioed back to say he had been shot. It’s not clear what started the fight, authorities said.
The chase for Spann was swift: Other deputies and officers with Sacramento police and the California Highway Patrol responded, and deputies on a sheriff’s helicopter saw the suspect run into a Red Roof Inn hotel.
About 100 officers were at the scene, and a SWAT team took about three hours to find the suspect.