Witness: man shot in Santa Ana was running away
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/police-galarza-nu-2368275-ez-shot
The man shot and killed by Santa Ana police officers on Friday was unarmed and running away from police who had stopped the car he was riding in, the car’s driver said Saturday.
Yajaira Nuñez, the 22-year-old driver, identified the man as Joseph Galarza.
Galarza was a fugitive who had been arrested recently on criminal street gang and firearm possession charges.
In court records, Galarza is listed as a fugitive on an April 6 weapons violation charge. He did not show up to an April 8 arraignment in which two co-defendants were charged.
Galarza had been sentenced to four years in state prison after pleading guilty to several drug sales and gang charges in 2007.
On Friday, a Santa Ana police gang unit pulled over a Dodge Charger being driven by Nuñez as the car headed east on Columbine Avenue near Main Street, west of the 55 freeway.
Nuñez said she and Galarza were headed to the Irvine Spectrum when police pulled the car over. When she stopped at the side of the road, she said, Galarza got out of the passenger seat and ran away, she said.
As he reached the top of a fence, police shot at the man three times, Nuñez said. It appeared he’d been shot in the head, Nuñez said.
Neighbor Connie De Los Reyes was in her kitchen at the time.
“I heard a short siren coming to a stop, I assume,” De Los Reyes said. “Then I heard three shots - pow, pow, pow,” she said. The shots came right after the siren stopped, she said. “There were 10 to 15 cars that swarmed in immediately,” she added.
After the shooting, police officers ran over and pulled him off the fence, Nuñez said.
Sgt. Brad Hadley said Saturday that he couldn’t comment on whether Galarza was armed.
It isn’t clear what the man did, but police opened fire, Cmdr. Tammy Franks said Friday. He was taken away in an ambulance and died soon after, Franks said.
California Highway Patrol officers, who have been assisting Santa Ana police with gang enforcement, “were in the area, but were not involved in the shooting,” Franks said.
Neighbor Pablo De Los Reyes saw the man who was shot.
“The side of his face was bloody, like he had been shot there,” he said.
Galarza, then 19, was in the news three years ago, when he was bitten by a police dog and arrested after a seven-hour standoff with police. That incident began when police tried to arrest Galarza on a drug warrant, and he fled and barricaded himself in a stranger’s home.
He was ultimately arrested on the drug warrant and suspicion of resisting arrest, unlawfully entering a residence, and assaulting an officer.
http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?section=news/local/orange_county&id=6768617
