Man shot in chest during botched street robbery
A man was shot and wounded Tuesday morning by one of two men trying to rob him on a Barrio Logan street, San Diego police said.
The incident happened about 5:30 a.m. on Boston Avenue between South 29th and South 30th streets, according to Sgt. Dave Yu and Sgt. Kevin Andreen.
A 911 caller first reported the incident as a robbery involving a knife or a gunshot, Andreen told OnScene TV. When officers arrived, they found the 28-year-old victim lying in the street with a gunshot entrance wound on the right side of his chest, and an exit wound on the left side.
Emergency responders applied a chest seal, and paramedics took him to a hospital, Andreen said.
“Doctors were able to get him in a stable condition and we believe that he will survive,” Andreen told OnScene TV.
Andreen said detectives said they believe the shooting happened during a robbery. In a news release, Yu said the shooting occurred during “an unknown altercation with two ... males.”
The assailants took off after the shooting, running toward an Interstate 5 entrance and then along an embankment on the side of I-5, Andreen said. Officers searched but did not find them.
Michael Anthony Carmichael, 21, was dressed in clothing adorned with San Diego County Sheriff's Department patches and driving a car outfitted with emergency strobe lights during the predawn incident in Fallbrook, sheriff 's Detective Lester Garman said in a news release.
When an actual deputy arrived, the alleged impersonator fled and later crashed, rolling his car off the side of a road, Garman said. Paramedics took Carmichael to a hospital before booking him into the Vista jail on suspicion of several felonies and misdemeanors, including impersonating a peace officer and false imprisonment.
Jail records showed he remained in custody Tuesday evening.
Around 2 a.m. Monday the real deputy drove up on what appeared to be a traffic stop on South Mission Road near Fallbrook High School, Garman said. The deputy spotted the unmarked car with strobe lights and thought a plainclothes deputy had made a traffic stop.
Sheriff 's officials said Tuesday they believe Carmichael has pulled over 10 other drivers since August in Bonsall, Fallbrook and Oceanside, and asked for any additional victims to come forward. They said he was driving a 2009 silver Toyota Camry with blue and red lights across the top of the windshield.
As the deputy turned around to assist, he spotted a man wearing a shirt with Sheriff's Department patches, a ballistic vest with a prominent “sheriff ” patch on it and a utility belt with what appeared to be a holstered gun, Garman said. When the deputy approached, the man ran to his car and sped away.
After a brief pursuit, the driver turned off the car's headlights and the sheriff 's deputy stopped following because it was too dangerous, Garman said. A short time later, the deputy happened upon a crash involving the car that fled on South Mission Road.
Deputies pulled Carmichael from the car, Garman said.
According to officials, items found on Carmichael or at his home included two replica firearms, brass knuckles, a baton and a fake badge that read “special police.”
Federal prosecutors in San Diego announced Tuesday that 26 people have been indicted for alleged drug smuggling and trafficking as part of a two-year investigation that led to the seizure of nearly 500,000 counterfeit pills laced with fentanyl.
The U.S. Attorney's Office said charges stem from a probe into an international drug-trafficking conspiracy that involved the trafficking of drugs from Mexico into the U.S. Prosecutors said traffickers coordinated shipments of pills that contained fentanyl, powder fentanyl, heroin, meth and cocaine.
The investigation has resulted in the arrests of 17 defendants, 14 of whom are from San Diego, San Ysidro, Chula Vista or El Cajon, prosecutors said.
Agents also seized more than 478,000 counterfeit pharmaceutical pills laced with fentanyl, along with other drugs and around $230,000 in assets, officials said.