Update: Santa Cruz Police Officers Shot
Source: Santa Cruz patch
Update: Santa Cruz Police Officers Shot
The coroner is on-scene; investigators are still looking for suspects in the shootings.
By Jennifer Squires and Brad Kava
Email the authors
5:04 pm
Two police officers may have been hit by gunfire in a home Tuesday afternoon and a third person shot in two incidents just minutes apart near North Branciforte Avenue, according to authorities and media reports.
Details about the shootings were sketchy but at least one person was killed.
Santa Cruz police declined to comment and directed all questions to the Santa Cruz County Sheriff's Office. The FBI is assisting with the incident, an FBI spokesman said.
The coroner was called to the area late in the afternoon.
The first report of gunshot victims came in just before 3:30 p.m. Two people had reportedly been wounded at 818 N. Branciforte Ave., between Sunnyside Avenue and Water Street, according to emergency radio traffic.
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Santa Cruz people! Beware! (From Jimmy Stiefel)
Happening now: shooting in Santa Cruz near Water/Branciforte. 2 cops down, 1 suspect down. Unknown if more suspects on loose. Joes, schools there on lockdown. Streets are closed. SWAT teams on scene, assualt rifles drawn. Avoid that area! "Take all necessary precautions." the police advise. Stay safe friends.
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RexDart
(188 posts)Might be one more gun man. Still a lot of action/chaos going on.
My house is in the lock down zone, so I'm still at work. My wife is at home and is totally freaked. I'm just fucking wrecked. I'm sure I've met both of the officers sometime in the past.
Liberal_in_LA
(44,397 posts)
cliffordu
(30,994 posts)
RandySF
(58,823 posts)AnotherMcIntosh
(11,064 posts)RexDart
(188 posts)"The deaths of detective Sgt. Loran "Butch" Baker, a 28-year veteran, and detective Elizabeth Butler, a 10-year veteran, are the first in the line of duty in the city's history. Authorities said they were found deceased outside suspect Jeremy Goulet's home in the 800 block of Branciforte shortly after the 3:30 p.m. shooting.
...
Goulet, 35, was shot and killed on Doyle Street after firing at officers who were conducting a search of the area, Santa Cruz County Sheriff Phil Wowak said. His agency will assume control of the investigation as outlined in the Police Department's critical incident protocol, with the cooperation Santa Cruz County District Attorney's Office.
...
The shooting comes after several weeks of unrest in Santa Cruz, including a downtown murder, the Westside shooting of a UC Santa Cruz student and the rape of another woman on campus. There also was a violent robbery at a Westside grocery store and a home-invasion robbery on the Eastside."
From what I'm picking up online - two plain cloths detectives were following up on an attempted sexual assault near the harbor over the weekend and were ambushed on the doorstep. The students in the 3 schools nearby (one was next door) were bused to the county building for pickup. Turns out I had only met Baker, who's son also serves on the SCPD. The Santa Cruz Sheriffs Office is leading the investigation and will also take over patrol duties in the city for the next few days.
Douglas Carpenter
(20,226 posts)I wonder what has happened to the place?
firenewt
(298 posts)
brislington
(15 posts)Hi neighbor! Like RexDart I only live a couple of blocks away on Morrissey, the convoys of police, helicopters and blockade of Hwy 1 were more excitement than I like to see in Santa Cruz. It's been a rough start to 2013, we were already wondering what was up with all the sudden gun violence, this just took it to a whole new level.
I am dong some soul searching too. I believe in the "Keep Santa Cruz Weird" effort, but I also understand that SC is way too fond of it's drugs. Though they shouldn't be, drugs are illegal right now so there is a supply chain staffed entirely with criminals. Just like prohibition the drug wars have created a ruthless corpratized infrastructure of gangs. SC not only has an indigenous community very into it's drugs, but also a somewhat welcoming attitude to the homeless that also have mental and addiction problems. Thanks to the Agri business serfdom in the central valley we also have serious gang issues fermenting within our close neighbor Watsonville. Lately they seem to like coming up to the not-big city to do their partying and taking shots at people they mistake for their rivals.
It's not going in a good direction.
What do we do? I believe in needle exchanges, I believe in treating addiction as a disease and I believe in supply and demand. We have a disproportionate demand for drugs now in SC and I don't like the look of the suppliers moving in to meet it.
I realize a lot of what I said above is not relevant to the nut who killed the officers. He had a history of unstable violence, voyeurism that got him prison time and had just been caught breaking into a female work mates apartment a couple of days before. Nothing here that would prevent him from owning guns of course, but at least this doesn't appear to be drug related. He did move here from somewhere else though and I think we have a reputation for being too slack at enforcing laws, drug or otherwise and that is making us attractive to the wrong kind of people.
In many ways SC is still Old America. Kids play baseball in the street, they walk to school and my neighbors talk to me. Some of them are weird, not as weird as me but I like that we are so very different to our neighbors in Silicon Valley. Something has gone wrong though and I would like to understand what it might be so we can stop.
maxsolomon
(33,345 posts)"a history of unstable violence, voyeurism that got him prison time and had just been caught breaking into a female work mates apartment"?
sounds exactly like someone who can't be trusted with a gun.
when my brother in law lost it (bipolar + crack), 1st thing we did was take his rifles.
