O.C. Deputy on Duty Kills Self; Called Accident

LAKE FOREST —  An Orange County sheriff’s deputy accidentally shot and killed himself with his service weapon Saturday afternoon, police said, punctuating the Christmas holiday with the second on-duty killing of a county law enforcement officer this year.

The officer, whose name was not released Saturday night, shot himself once in the chest just after 2 p.m. in the parking lot behind the Edwards El Toro movie theater in Twin Peaks Plaza, police said. He was pronounced dead on arrival at Saddleback Memorial Hospital in Mission Viejo on Saturday afternoon.

“Today, we have all lost a true friend and hero to law enforcement,” Sheriff Brad Gates said in a statement released by his department. “His memory and exemplary service to the community will never be forgotten.”

Police refused to discuss the circumstances surrounding the officer’s death, but investigators said Saturday evening they were not searching for any suspects in the shooting. Lt. Tom Garner said officials had eliminated the possibility of suicide, and called the shooting “accidental.”

The Orange County district attorney’s office, which looks into all officer-involved shootings, took over the investigation Saturday night.

Late Saturday night, Gates met with the victim’s wife at department headquarters. “He wanted to spend a personal moment with her,” said Lt. William J. Francis.

Officials refused to comment on how long the deputy had worked at the department, or provide any information about his career.

He was the 32nd officer from Orange County, and the fifth from the Sheriff’s Department, to be killed in the line of duty since 1912. Mark S. Tonkin, who died in a helicopter crash during border surveillance in 1988, was the most recent victim from the Sheriff’s Department.

In March, Garden Grove Police Officer Howard E. Dallies Jr. was fatally shot during a routine traffic stop in a residential neighborhood. Police have yet to identify a suspect in that case.

Saturday night, police released scant details regarding the deputy’s fatal shooting.

Garner said the deputy had just finished a burglary call and was in his patrol car when his gun went off. Garner and Lt. Dan Martini refused to say whether another officer was in the patrol car with the victim, or how the shooting was discovered.

Martini said the officer was in the parking lot on “routine patrol.” He would not say how long the officer had been on duty when the shooting occurred.

Both spokesmen also declined to identify the type of weapon involved in the shooting, but Garner said the gun was the dead officer’s department-issued weapon.

The victim was apparently transported in the back seat of a police cruiser, which sat, stained with blood and hastily parked, outside the hospital. Investigators photographed the contents of the trunk of the cruiser at the hospital, while about a dozen officers milled about the emergency entrance, some of them obviously shocked, others puffy-eyed with grief.

“The death of this deputy has tragically taken a well-respected deputy from the arms of the sheriff’s family,” Martini said in the written statement he issued.

At 6:30 p.m., the victim’s body, covered with a sheet, was rolled out on a gurney and loaded into a white van. Overcome with grief, one man turned away, covered his eyes and leaned against a wall, while another patted his back.

“I can’t explain to you the feelings that are going through our department right now,” Martini said. “It’s tremendous.”

At the movie theater where the shooting occurred, employees knew little about it.

“We didn’t even hear a gun go off. We didn’t even know until the cop came up and put up the ropes (cordoning off the crime scene),” said John Hull, the manager on duty at the theater at the time of the shooting.

“We never heard an ambulance, we never heard gunfire, we never heard anything. They roped it off and said, ‘Don’t let anything go back there.’ ”

Saturday afternoon and evening, the movie theater was open and busy, as about a dozen sheriff’s deputies searched for information regarding the shooting in the back parking lot.

Times staff photographer Ana E. Fuentes contributed to this report.