Police Shoot, Kill Teenager After Chase : Law enforcement: Authorities say a gun was recovered near the scene where Jose Pulido died. Suspect fired no shots.

SANTA ANA —  A teenager was shot and killed Thursday night after leading two police officers on a short chase near his home, authorities said.

The boy’s name has not been released by the coroner’s office, but family members and friends at the scene identified him as Jose Pulido, 17.

Pulido, known to friends as Joseph, was straddling a bike in front of his cousin’s house near McClay and 2nd streets about 4:45 p.m., talking to two friends who were sharing a bottle of beer in a paper bag, when two officers approached them about the alcohol, police and friends said.

“The officers pulled up and parked their vehicle to talk to the person drinking the beer,” Police Lt. Bob Helton said. “The young man jumps off the bike . . . and jumps the fence to the vacant lot.”

One of the officers chased him while the other approached the two men with the beer. When the second officer saw that the men had put down the beer and walked away, he joined in the chase, Helton said.

The two officers jumped the fence after Pulido. One of them yelled, “ ‘I know you have a gun,’ or something to that effect,” Helton said. The teenager continued to run toward a parking lot of Santa Ana Feed and Saddlery in the 1400 block of East 1st Street, police said.

As the second officer approached a fence separating a home and the parking lot, he saw the first officer lean over and fire three to four shots, Helton said. The first officer was yelling but the second officer could not make out what was said, according to police.

“We don’t know what the first officer saw because at this point, we haven’t talked to him about this yet,” Helton said. “No shots were fired from the suspect. . . . After the shooting, we located a gun thrown over the fence to a [nearby] backyard. We believe the gun belonged to the suspect.”

The officers’ names were withheld pending investigations by Santa Ana police internal affairs and the Orange County district attorney’s office.

Julio Bonilla, 21, who was one of the two men sharing a beer when the officers arrived, said he had come by to relax after work with his friends.

“All of a sudden, they just stopped the car and one of them ran toward us,” Bonilla said. “Joseph threw his bike down and took off. He was scared. He’s on probation.”

Bonilla said he doesn’t think that Pulido had a gun and believes that the teenager ran after panicking at the sight of the police.

“I was walking toward my car to leave, when I heard a ‘boom,’ ” Bonilla said. “I ran back and saw [the police officer] leaning over the fence. I could see perfectly that he was reloading his gun.”

Dozens of friends and relatives arrived within minutes of the shooting, many of whom were sobbing as they comforted each other near the scene of the shooting. They said Pulido was a gang member who planned to leave the gang, get a part-time job and go back to high school.

Pulido was 30 credits away from a diploma in an independent studies program at Century High School in Alhambra and planned to return, said Rosemary Cuevas, Pulido’s 26-year-old sister.

He had served time at Juvenile Hall until August for car theft, Cuevas said. Last year, he was shot in the leg in a gang incident, she said.

“He admitted to being a gang member, but he was taking steps to get out of it,” Cuevas said. “He is a good person.”