Shooting leads to long SWAT standoff in E. County

A nearly seven-hour standoff Thursday prompted by a shooting that injured a woman outside a Lemon Grove home ended when the suspected shooter surrendered after deputies fired chemical agents into the house, sheriff ’s officials said.

The suspect, identified as Brandon Andrade, 28, came out quickly and with his hands up at 2:45 p.m., Lt. Matthew Carpenter said.

He was to be evaluated by the Psychiatric Emergency Response Team, or PERT, before being booked into jail on suspicion of three counts of attempted murder, the department said in a tweet.

The department said the man is a military veteran and was experiencing a mental health crisis.

The incident started after a someone in the home on Longdale Drive opened fire, and a neighbor was struck by bullet fragments shortly before 8 a.m., department officials said.

Authorities were told that a man had been shooting at neighbors with an AR-15-style rifle, Carpenter said. The department confirmed that one of the neighbors was hit by a piece of a bullet.

The injured woman was taken to a hospital. Carpenter said she had been able to speak with first responders, and her injuries are not considered lifethreatening.

Carpenter said the suspected gunman was still inside the home when he opened fire, and that authorities believe he may have had access to other firearms.

The man’s mother was able to get out of the house. No one other than the 28-year-old suspect was believed to be inside the residence, according to the department.

Deputies were able to establish communication with the man during the standoff.

While the standoff was under way, the department issued a news release with a message directed at the barricaded man: “If the suspect is watching the news or reading this release, we ask that you work with and trust the person you are talking to on the phone. They are trying to help you. They want to get you to a safe place.”

Deputies evacuated nine homes and closed Skyline and Longdale drives, as well Myra Street at Palm Street.

The Lemon Grove Early Childhood Education Center was placed on lockdown as a precaution. The preschool is several blocks from the home.

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Man sentenced to life without parole for killing father

SAN DIEGO

A man who killed his 71-year-old father inside the victim’s Rancho Santa Fe home was sentenced Thursday to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

A San Diego jury found Leighton Dorey IV, 45, guilty last year of first-degree murder, plus a special-circumstance allegation of torture, in the May 30, 2017, killing of Leighton Dorey III.

Prosecutors said that after spending four years living in France, the son showed up at his father’s home on La Brisa near Calle Dos Lagos, then killed him because of a perceived lack of financial support.

The elder Dorey was beaten and strangled, according to the prosecution. His injuries included fractures to his spine, neck and ribs, as well as a broken nose and broken jaw and teeth.

The conviction came during Dorey’s second murder trial. In his first trial in Vista Superior Court, the jury voted 11-1 in favor of convicting him. Dorey represented himself in the second trial at the downtown San Diego courthouse.

Dorey testified on his own behalf and told jurors he killed his father in self-defense after the father tried to strangle him with a belt. Dorey testified that after bending down to tie one of his shoelaces, his father screamed, “Now you’re dead!” threw his belt around the son’s neck and began choking him.

Dorey claimed that a struggle ensued and he tried to subdue his father by putting him in a sleeper hold. It was during the struggle that he killed his father.

He told jurors he was in a state of panic and attempted to stage the scene to look like a suicide. When those efforts failed, he said, he tried to make it look as though his father had been killed by an accidental fall down a stairway.

Dorey described his treatment of his father’s body as “horrific” and “repulsive,” but said he did not intend to kill him.

“I do think what I did was wrong,” he testified. “But it’s not murder.”

After the killing, Dorey said, he drove to a police station in Murrieta and was prepared to turn himself in, but said, “I couldn’t make myself do it” and left to have “one more day of freedom.”

Law enforcement tracked him down one day later and arrested him in Idyllwild.