By Mike De La Cruz, The Merced Sun-Star (Merced, Calif.)
| | |
|
Merced, Calif. -- All eyes were on the city’s residential areas Friday as officers sought the man they believe killed one of their own the night before.
But as of late Friday, the gunman had not been found.
Officers in a helicopter, surveillance planes and on the ground surrounded an area near where the shooting occurred -- at Glen and East Santa Fe avenues.
They served search warrants at several other spots Friday, looking for Tahua “Tao” Cuitlahuac Rivera, 21, of Merced.
Rivera is wanted in connection with the slaying of Merced police officer Stephan Gray, 34, Thursday night. Gray was gunned down after stopping a vehicle Rivera was riding in, police said.
Gray, in uniform but driving an unmarked Chevrolet Caprice, stopped a green Geo Metro driven by an unidentified woman at 7:23 p.m. Thursday near East 19th Street and Glen, police said.
A seven-year department vet-eran, Gray was assigned to the special operations unit that works street-level narcotics and gang violence suppression.
Merced police say they do not know why he stopped the car, and it is unclear if Gray called the dispatcher who was on duty.
Police say Rivera, a parolee, was a passenger in the Metro and that Gray tried to search him. A witness told officers she saw the man run, turn and fire at Gray, hitting him twice.
Gray never had time to draw his gun, said police Cmdr. Norman Andrade.
An autopsy performed Friday showed Gray was hit in the upper right chest, above his protective vest. The large-caliber bullet from a handgun breached a major artery and lodged in his spine. He also was shot in the right arm.
Sheriff Mark Pazin said Gray died almost instantly.
There had been rumors that Gray was shot in the head, but that is not true, Pazin said. When Gray fell to the ground, he cut his head, the sheriff explained.
Police talked to the woman driving the Metro, but would not release her name or age. They also would not say how they identified Rivera as the gunman.
Merced County Superior Court Judge Frank Dougherty on Friday signed warrants charging Rivera with murder and setting his bail at $2 million.
An anonymous tip led officers to an apartment complex at Glen and East Santa Fe on Friday.
The area was closed off while Special Weapons and Tactics teams combed the complex for more than four hours, conducting a unit-by-unit search.
A neighboring apartment complex also was searched. Police said they went to some of Rivera’s known hangouts and to the homes of some of his relatives.
After the SWAT team stormed the Buena Vista Drive apartment of Rivera’s sister, breaking down the door, police Detective Rod Dash addressed her through an interpreter.
“Your brother is a fugitive. He is a wanted fugitive, and he is wanted for murder. If you let him into your house, you will be arrested and your children will be sent to” Child Protective Services, Dash told her.
He told the interpreter that he wanted to make sure Rivera’s sister clearly understood what he was saying.
State agents and officers from the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department and the Merced Fire Department helped search and monitor the crime scene.
Dozens of law enforcement officers and search dogs came from Los Banos, Dos Palos, Livingston the California Department of Corrections and elsewhere to aid in the manhunt.
“The whole department is thinking about the fallen officer’s family, and we are committed to finding this thug who gunned down officer Gray in cold blood,” Pazin said.
Rivera has a juvenile criminal record, which is sealed, and an adult police record going back to 2000, when he was arrested for investigation of possessing a firearm.
He was given a three-year suspended prison term, was ordered to serve eight months in the county jail and was placed on five years’ probation. He was sent to prison in late 2001 for probation violation and possession of rock cocaine.
Friday night, the round-the-clock search was scaled back because most of the officers had been working for 24 to 36 hours.
Police Chief Tony Dossetti told his men they needed to rest.
He said he believes Rivera is still in the area because he has friends and family in Merced. Dossetti said police are counting on the public to help them find Rivera.
“This person is armed and dangerous, and needs to be taken off the street,” Dossetti said. “There’s nobody who is safe while he is on the street.”
Dossetti was not the only one who felt that way Friday.
Billy Edgington, 18, who lives near the neighborhood where some apartments were searched, rode up on his bike.
Standing in a back yard across the railroad tracks, he watched as 10 police officers, in black paramilitary uniforms and carrying assault weapons, entered an upstairs apartment unit through the window.
He said he was not surprised a gang member would shoot an officer, but said that someone being so reckless is unsettling.
“If he is going to shoot a cop, what’s stopping him from shooting someone else?” he said.