Man accused of ambushing officers killed in California police shootout
A man suspected of ambushing and shooting a California sheriff ’s deputy was killed on Thursday after a shootout with police, authorities said.
Three officers suffered non-lifethreatening injuries on Thursday afternoon, a day after the alleged ambush in Paso Robles.
A spokesman for the San Luis Obispo sheriff confirmed the death of Mason James Lira, 26. Details of the circumstances around his death were not immediately available.
Officers from the Arroyo Grande police department, California highway patrol and Kings County sheriff’s office were wounded.
Lira is accused of ambushing and seriously injuring a San Luis Obispo sheriff’s deputy and killing a homeless man on Wednesday. The attacks set off a huge manhunt on the central California coast that ended in the shootout.
Lira’s father said his son had several mental illnesses and did not take his medication.
At least one officer was shot as police attempted to take Lira into custody during a chaotic scene in a riverbed, with residents in a two-mile radius locked down. Officials did not immediately say how many other officers had been injured or how serious their wounds were.
The manhunt for Lira, 26, began at dawn on Wednesday, when authorities said he opened fire on the Paso Robles police station and then shot a San Luis Obispo county sheriff’s deputy in the face. The deputy suffered serious injuries.
While scores of officers searched for Lira, they received a report of a body near a train station and found a 58-yearold man shot to death on the tracks. He appeared to be a homeless man who had been camping out overnight. Police believe Lira was responsible for the killing.
Jose Lira said his son had been diagnosed with schizophrenia, Asperger’s syndrome and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. He said his son has been in and out of jail and treatment centers and often thought he is a special agent or a soldier.
“He lives in a fantasy world,” Jose Lira said. “He doesn’t have a beef with the police.”
Police say Lira opened fire on the police station around 4am Wednesday. Two sheriff’s deputies heard gunshots and responded but did not see the attacker until they were outside their patrol car and under fire. Nicholas Dreyfus, 28, was hit in the face and underwent surgery.
The search intensified on Thursday in Paso Robles, a tourist destination in California’s central coast wine region.
Police closed parts of a freeway and used flash-bangs while searching apartments.
Jose Lira said he had last spoken to his son about two months ago, when his son had threatened him and became belligerent.
“I slept with a gun loaded under my pillow last night,” he said. “I’m afraid of him, too.”
The attack came just five days after law enforcement officers were ambushed farther north in the community of Ben Lomond. There is no indication the shootings are related.
Damon Gutzwiller, 38, a Santa Cruz sheriff’s sergeant, was killed and another deputy injured on Saturday in an attack by an air force sergeant armed with homemade bombs, an AR-15 rifle and other weapons, authorities said. 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 US courthouse in Oakland during a protest against police brutality on 29 May. A white van was spotted at both attacks.
Prosecutors on Thursday filed 19 charges against Carrillo, who faces life in prison if convicted.