Through news reports, the media provided a press perspective on the incident. 

Note that the Sheriff's account mentions nothing about the officers mistaking the dislodged bumper for a fallen officer as reported by the County Medical Examiner.

NBCSandiego.com 

(Left click on link for full story, photos and video link)

http://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/10345815/detail.html?subid=10101561

Marine Killed At End Of Chase Is ID'd    

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North County Times

By: JO MORELAND - Staff Writer

SOLANA BEACH -- Law enforcement officers fatally shot a suspected drunken driver early Thursday after he rammed a sheriff's patrol car and tried to run down officers following a chase, a sheriff's homicide lieutenant said.

The name of the suspect who died on North Highway 101 in Solana Beach shortly before 2:30 a.m., north of Lomas Santa Fe Drive, wasn't released. Investigators said he was a young, active-duty Marine.

At daybreak about a dozen patrol cars with flashing red, blue and yellow lights blocked the lanes behind the yellow crime scene tape surrounding a two-block area of mostly small businesses. Portions of the road remained closed until about 6:30 p.m. Thursday.

"It's terrifying," said area resident Janice DeGraw. "I've never seen Solana Beach like this before."

Detective Gene Burch of the Encinitas Sheriff's Station said the only other recent deputy-involved shooting Encinitas detectives could recall was about five years ago.

In that case, a bank robber died during a gun battle on a small residential street.

As sheriff's homicide investigators continued sorting out what happened Thursday, traffic began backing up through the area as drivers searched for other ways south during the morning commute.

The shooting happened in front of the Solana Beach train station in the small, picture-perfect coastal city.

Trains were still operating. However, riders who got off in Solana Beach were having to walk around the scene.

"It's just an inconvenience," said train commuter Brian Ardolino, 26, of San Diego, who was headed to his job in Solana Beach.

While the North County Transit District used special shuttles to get its bus riders between Encinitas and Solana Beach, sheriff's homicide Lt. Dennis Brugos outlined what happened in an interview.

The pursuit started, he said, at 1:24 a.m. in Oceanside when California Highway Patrol officers tried to pull over the suspected drunken driver of a full-sized blue Dodge Ram pickup truck on westbound Highway 78 at Jefferson Street.

The driver failed to stop, continuing northbound to Interstate 5 onto eastbound Highway 76 before circling back on surface streets through the biggest city in north San Diego County to the freeway, he said.

Brugos said the pursuit turned south on Interstate 5 into Carlsbad, then west on Poinsettia Lane.

As the chase continued south on coastal Highway 101 into Encinitas, he said, sheriff's deputies were notified at 1:47 a.m. because the chase was moving into their jurisdiction.

The deputies set up a spike strip on North Coast Highway 101 at Leucadia Boulevard. Brugos said the pickup almost hit a deputy there as the fleeing driver avoided the metal needles.

The driver also made it around a second spike strip set up on South Coast Highway 101 at Chesterfield Drive as officers tried to blow out the truck's tires, said the lieutenant. .

When the southbound pursuit approached Estrella Street in Solana Beach, he said, a Highway Patrol officer used a ramming maneuver to try to make the pickup spin out.

"He spun out, but then he drove over the median and into the northbound lanes," Brugos said.

He said a Highway Patrol car rammed the pickup a second time before deputies and Highway Patrol officers tried to block the pickup to stop the chase.

The sheriff's official said the deputies and officers then ordered the driver to turn off the truck's engine and put his hands up.

Instead, Brugos said, the pickup rammed a deputy's car, then backed up and rapidly accelerated toward two deputies and a Highway Patrol officer who were standing between their patrol cars.

The truck got within about 8 feet, the lieutenant said.

"At that time, two deputies and two Highway Patrol officers fired at him," the lieutenant said.

He said the truck stopped a short distance away, and paramedics were called.

"The suspect was taken out of the vehicle," Brugos said.

The driver was pronounced dead at the scene at 2:21 a.m., he said.

During the chase, Oceanside police were asked to supply a dog team to help take the driver into custody, officers said.

"Our officers were there when the pursuit ended, but we weren't in the pursuit," said Sgt. Leonard Mata, Oceanside police spokesman.

Deputies shut down the highway between Lomas Santa Fe and Chesterfield Drive for the long investigation by the Sheriff's Department, which provides law enforcement for Solana Beach.

Under the Highway Patrol's pursuit policy, a pursuit is stopped when the safety of the public or the officers may be jeopardized, said Jaime Coffee, a CHP spokeswoman in Sacramento. She said the time of the chase and traffic are among factors considered

"It's up to the discretion of an officer and a supervisor," said Coffee.

The driver's body lay uncovered for hours on the pavement as investigators gathered evidence.

"Our procedure is that we don't cover the body, we don't put any foreign material on it, because we don't want to contaminate it," said sheriff's homicide Capt. Clay Reynard.

Reynard said that in all death investigations the Sheriff's Department doesn't want attorneys, including defense attorneys, to be able to say later that something found at the scene was there because it was brought in with the covering.

Shortly after 7 a.m. Luke Kim and his wife, Lucia, both 67, were looking at the shooting scene as they took their morning walk. They moved into a home three months ago that's about two blocks from the site.

"I heard a lot of police cars, the sirens," said Luke Kim. "Then I heard a lot of shots, maybe 10 or 15. Like machine guns."

He said there was a pause of several seconds, then four or five more shots. Lucia Kim said by then she was awake and starting to get up.

"My husband said, 'Stay,' " she said.

http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2006/11/17/news/

top_stories/1_01_1011_16_06.txt

ALBERT JOHNSON / Union-Tribune

Suspected drunken driver chased, killed by officers

By Debbi Farr Baker
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

November 17, 2006

SOLANA BEACH – A suspected drunken driver who led authorities on a pre-dawn chase yesterday was shot and killed after he tried to run over a sheriff's deputy, police said.

Two deputies and two California Highway Patrol officers opened fire on the driver of a Dodge Ram pickup after he slammed into a deputy's car and then tried to run down one of the deputies, sheriff's Lt. Dennis Brugos said.

“After ramming the deputy's car, he backed up and rapidly accelerated,” Brugos said. “When he was 8 feet from the officers, they fired on him.”

The driver was not identified.

Brugos said the incident began at 1:25 a.m. when CHP officers tried to stop a driver suspected of being drunk on westbound state Route 78 near Jefferson Street in Oceanside.

The man refused to stop, instead taking officers on a circuitous route, first heading north on Interstate 5, then to eastbound state Route 76. He then got off the freeway and drove through Oceanside on surface streets before getting back onto southbound I-5, Brugos said.

He continued south until Poinsettia Lane/Aviara Parkway, where he got off and headed west.  

Deputies, monitoring the chase, set up two spike strips on North Coast Highway 101 at Chesterfirld Drive. But the driver eluded both strips, Brugos said, adding, "He almost hit deputy who first put the spike strip on Leucadia Boulevard." CHP officers then tried what they call a PIT maneuver, ramming their cars into the back of the pickup to force it to spin out and stop.

The first time the truck spun but didn't stop, Brugos said. The second ramming spun the pickup again, and officers were able to box it in between Lomas Santa Fe Drive and Estrella Street, across from the Solana Beach train station, he said.

Brugos said that as two CHP officers and two deputies got out of their patrol cars and moved toward the truck-by then, it was about 2:20 a.m-its driver rammed one of the cars and then suddenly accerlerated rapidly toward one of the CHP officers, who was standing between the cars. All four officers opened fire.

No further information about the man was available.

The officers involved in the shooting will be placed on routine administrative leave during the investigation.

The coast highway was closed all day from Chesterfield Drive in Encinitas, where it is called South Coast Highway 101, to Lomas Santa Fe Drive in Solana Beach, where it is North Highway 101. It reopened at 6:30 p.m.

Officials also had to shut down one of the train tracks that runs along the coastal corridor, as well as the walkway over the tracks at the Solana Beach station.

One Coaster train heading south was delayed about 15 minutes, but no other significant delays occurred, said North County Transit District spokesman Tom Kelleher.

San Diego Union-Tribune

Deputy in fatal shootings is no stranger to spotlight.

Ritchie also facing excessive-force suits

By Jose Luis Jiménez
STAFF WRITER

July 13, 2007

During three years of patrolling San Diego County's streets, sheriff's Deputy Mark Ritchie has been involved in two fatal shootings, has been accused in three lawsuits of excessive force and testified once that he kicked a handcuffed murder suspect.

Yesterday, the state Attorney General's Office announced that the district attorney was right not to prosecute Ritchie for the killing of Jorge Ramirez, a robbery suspect who was shot six times as he lay on the ground, wounded by a previous gunshot.

The attorney general's report questions the district attorney's analysis of the case, but in the end concluded it would be difficult to convince a jury that Ritchie committed a crime.

Ritchie told investigators that after he wounded Ramirez, he shot him six times in the chest to “eliminate” the threat he posed because he feared two other robbers would ambush him from behind, according to an internal sheriff's report on the incident, which was obtained before the attorney general's report by The San Diego Union-Tribune. Ritchie is accused in another federal lawsuit of striking a suspect in the head with a flashlight as the man lay on the ground. A third lawsuit involves a man who claims he was assaulted by Ritchie and another deputy as he approached an ambulance in Encinitas to check on his son, who had been attacked.

Less than two years after the Ramirez shooting, Ritchie was involved in a second fatal shooting – that of a Marine who refused to stop for officers and then raced his truck toward them, said two sources familiar with the shooting. Law enforcement officials have refused to disclose the names of the four officers who fired their weapons, citing a recent state Supreme Court decision that they say allows them to keep the names private.

In the excessive-force lawsuits, lawyers paint Ritchie as an aggressive deputy who often violates people's constitutional rights by using violence to subdue them.

While it is not necessarily uncommon for a few officers to be responsible for multiple shootings, law enforcement experts said it is unusual for one officer to face simultaneous lawsuits alleging excessive force.

Second deadly incident

Ritchie was involved in a second fatal shooting 16 months after Ramirez was killed.

Ritchie, another deputy and two California Highway Patrol officers fired at Marine Cpl. Robert J. Medina in Solana Beach as he accelerated his vehicle toward the officers Nov. 16, 2006, said the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity because law enforcement agencies refuse to identify the officers involved in the shooting. The officers were trying to stop Medina, who was based at Camp Pendleton and had recently returned from Iraq, as he drove erratically. They believed he was drunk during the hour-long chase.

The Sheriff's Department, which in the past routinely made public the names of deputies who fired their weapons, will not confirm that Ritchie was involved in the shooting. Officials cited a new policy of refusing to identify deputies adopted after the California Supreme Court ruled that law enforcement personnel records are confidential and can be made public only in limited circumstances.

The district attorney's review of the shooting has not been completed, spokesman Paul Levikow said.  Law enforcement officials have released few details about the case.

John Parker, who recently retired after 10 years as the executive officer of the county Citizens Law Enforcement Review Board, said there is no simple explanation for the deputy's actions.

Parker, who was an Oakland police officer for 22 years and served seven years on the San Francisco Police Commission, has reviewed dozens of officer-involved shootings and hundreds of complaints filed by the public against officers.

“It's certainly unusual for any deputy to have three lawsuits for excessive force. Certainly it could be bad luck, or it could be something he's doing,” Parker said. “It's a dangerous world out there, and a lot of people will fight to stay out of jail.”

During the board's review of the Ramirez case, Parker criticized Ritchie for placing himself in a dangerous situation. Specifically, the deputy went to a call without being sent and did not alert anyone to his location, Parker said. He also questioned Ritchie's decision to pull alongside the Jeep, which left him open to attack.

“He placed himself into that position and did not have help coming,” Parker said. “I believe none of that would have happened had he been responding to the call without notifying someone on the radio.”

Jose Jimenez: (760) 737-7568; jose.jimenez@uniontrib.com

http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/        20070713/news_1n13ritchie.html