Police1 Staff Report
(SANTA CLARITA, Calif.) --Three deputies returned fire at a distraught 37-year-old man carrying an assault rifle early last Saturday, killing the man, according to the Los Angeles Sheriffs Department.
Mark Gault was outside his parents’ house, holding an SKS assault rifle when the deputies arrived to answer a vandalism call.
Gault was ordered to drop the weapon but fired several shots. The unnamed officers returned fire. Gault retreated to the house where he was later found dead, apparently from the deputies’ gunshots to his upper torso, a department spokesman said.
Investigators later found a “stash” of handguns and assault weapons in the house, the Los Angeles Times reported.
Gault appeared intoxicated and was mumbling about family problems before the incident, a neighbor told the newspaper, which reported that Gault’s mother was terminally ill and he had moved back into the house to help his father.