A 29-year-old man was arrested after barricading himself in a house for several hours before surrendering with a weapon.
Authorities in the city of Los Angeles in the United States have arrested a suspect in connection with the murder of a sheriff’s deputy who was ambushed and fatally shot during a traffic stop with a reward of $250,000 being offered for information. .
Ryan Clinkunbroomer, 30, was shot while sitting in his patrol car at a red light outside a sheriff’s station on Saturday night in the city of Palmdale, about 90km (55 miles) northeast of Los Angeles on Sunday.
A 29-year-old man was arrested early Monday after barricading himself inside a home in the city of Palmdale for several hours before surrendering at gunpoint, Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna told a press conference.
Officers identified the arrested suspect as Kevin Cataneo Salazar of Palmdale.
Luna said authorities have yet to determine a motive for Deputy Clinkunbroomer’s slaying and described the situation as “fluid”, saying more arrests could be made.
“I feel very confident that we have the right person in custody,” Luna said.
“Our deputy was in uniform in a marked black-and-white police car right in front of the station,” Luna said. “Why did he do this? I don’t know. Was he targeted? I believe he is but … our intention is to find out.
The suspect’s mother, Marle Salazar, told the Los Angeles Times that her son was diagnosed as paranoid schizophrenic about five years ago.
“My son is mentally ill, and when he does something, he is not at his full mental capacity,” she said in a newspaper interview.
Clinkunbroomer had just left the sheriff’s station in Palmdale, a city of more than 167,000 residents in the high desert of northern Los Angeles County, when he was shot and killed. A passerby found him and alerted the station staff.
The department later released grainy surveillance video of a black sedan pulling up next to the patrol car moments before the shooting.
Early Monday, a SWAT team from the department’s Special Enforcement Bureau served a search warrant on the residence and called on all occupants to come out, the sheriff said.
The family members came out but the suspect barricaded himself inside, he said. Deputies used de-escalation techniques including negotiators before they “deployed chemical agents” and the suspect surrendered, Luna said.
He did not identify the weapons that were seized.
Marle Salazar said she called deputies at least twice in the past, asking for help when her son refused to take his medicine and became aggressive on his own. He said he had never hurt anyone before and his aggression was always self-directed.
“I called the police several times,” he told the Times. “Finally, they say, ‘He’s an adult, so if he doesn’t want to take it [his medication]there’s nothing we can do’.”
