Report: Man who killed officer may have been bystander

The man who fatally shot a Davis police officer Thursday night and later took his own life may have been a bystander who ambushed the 22-year-old officer as she investigated a car crash, according to a report.

Christian Pascual, a 25-yearold graduate student who was one of the drivers involved in the crash, told The Sacramento Bee that Officer Natalie Corona had been talking with the drivers when Pascual heard gunfire coming from behind him. Pascual said he believed the man was a bystander who had not been involved in the crash.

“I gave her my license and she was just about to give it to me,” Pascual told the Bee. “That’s when I heard the shots.”

Police on Friday had not yet publicly identified the man they say killed Corona. Meanwhile Corona’s colleagues and public officials mourned the loss of the officer who graduated from the department’s training academy last summer and had only been on patrol by herself for a few weeks before Thursday’s shooting.

“She was a rising star in the department,” Davis Police Chief Darren Pytel said at a news conference late Thursday. Pytel said Corona was like a daughter and sister to many officers in the department.

Gov. Gavin Newsom ordered Capitol flags to half-staff Friday to honor Corona, who the Woodland Daily Democrat reported was the first Davis police officer killed in the line of duty since 1959.

“We join all Californians in mourning the loss of this courageous officer and extend our deepest condolences to Officer Corona’s family, friends, and coworkers,” Newsom said in a statement.

Corona was shot about 7 p.m. Thursday while investigating a three-car crash near the intersection of Fifth and D streets, just north of downtown Davis, authorities said.

Police from nearby agencies swarmed the area after Corona was shot, shutting down major streets and freeway exits, and locking down and searching nearby businesses, according to the Woodland Daily Democrat.

Corona was taken to UC Davis Medical Center, where she died. Officers surrounded a house about a block away from the shooting scene, near Fifth and E streets, where hours later authorities said the man who killed Corona fatally shot himself.

As of Friday afternoon, police had not said whether the man who shot Corona was involved in the crash or lived at the home where he died. Authorities have said the man did not know Corona, the Woodland Daily Democrat reported.

An alert from UC Davis described the shooter as a “white male in his 20s, average build, baseball cap, black jacket, blue or tan jeans, black tactical boots.”

The Sacramento Sheriff’s Department is leading the investigation into the shooting, Sgt. Shaun Harper said, with assistance from Davis police, the California Highway Patrol and state Department of Justice. Harper referred questions about the shooter to Davis police, who did not respond to inquiries Friday.

Although she was in her first year as an officer, Corona had worked for Davis police since 2016, mostly as a community service officer. After funding for her position ran out, she worked as a volunteer for the department, the Woodland Daily Democrat reported.

Corona lived in Arbuckle, a small Colusa County town where she grew up, about 40 miles north of Davis. Her father, Merced Corona, spent 26 years as a Colusa County sheriff’s deputy before his retirement, and was elected to the county’s board of supervisors last year.

When Natalie Corona was sworn in as a Davis police officer in August, the Williams Pioneer Review reported, it was her father who pinned on her badge.