California Deputies ambush arrest
Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva, right, and District Attorney Jackie Lacey announce the arrest of a man in connection with the shooting of two Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies at a news conference in Los Angeles Wednesday, Sept. 30, 2020. Lacy says attempted murder charges have been filed against Deonte Lee Murray. He was arrested two weeks ago in connection with a separate carjacking. The deputies suffered critical wounds in the Sept. 12 shooting which was recorded by surveillance video. (AP Photo/Stefanie Dazio)
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By Stefanie Dazio, AP

California investigators have arrested and charged a man in connection with the shooting of two Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies earlier this month as they sat in their squad car, authorities said Wednesday.

Attempted murder charges were filed against Deonte Lee Murray, 36, District Attorney Jackie Lacey told reporters.

Murray, a resident of the city of Compton, where the shooting happened, was arrested two weeks ago in connection with a separate carjacking and he was expected to be arraigned later Wednesday on charges in both cases. Prosecutors planned to request for bail of $6.15 million.

Sheriff’s Homicide Bureau Capt. Kent Wegener, who provided details about the investigation, did not suggest a specific motive for the attack “other than the fact that he obviously hates policemen and he wants them dead.”

The deputies suffered head wounds in the Sept. 12 ambush and have since been released from the hospital and are recovering. Sheriff Alex Villanueva said, however, that they face further reconstructive surgeries and that their recoveries will be a long process.

LASD Deputies Shot California
A screen grab from a security camera video released the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department shows a gunman walking up to sheriff’s deputies and opening fire without warning or provocation in Compton, Calif., on Saturday, Sept. 12, 2020. (Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department via AP)

Surveillance video showed a person walking toward the patrol car, parked at a Metro rail station and firing a handgun through the passenger-side window. The deputies radioed for help despite their wounds.

The deputies, a 31-year-old woman and 24-year-old man who have not been identified publicly, graduated together from the sheriff’s academy 14 months ago.

Investigators determined that the suspect fled in a black Mercedes Benz and learned that type of vehicle was stolen in a Sept. 1 carjacking in which the driver was shot and wounded. A suspect was identified in the carjacking and photographs were compared to images from the ambush, strengthening a connection to the shooting of the deputies, Wegener said.

On Sept. 15, investigator spotted the suspect driving another vehicle and attempted to stop him. A gun was thrown out before the suspect abandoned the car in the city of Lynwood and fled on foot and was ultimately captured. The black Mercedes was found nearby.

Ballistics testing of the gun discarded during the pursuit showed it was the one used in the attack on the deputies, Wegener said. He also noted that the gun held eight rounds, five short of its capacity, and that five rounds had been fired at the deputies.

Authorities said Murray has a criminal history including convictions for sales and possession of narcotics, firearm possession, receiving stolen property, burglary and terrorist threats. The new complaint includes allegations of association with a criminal street gang.

Compton is among communities near South Los Angeles, an area with a large Black population that has long been a flashpoint for racial tension and mistrust of police.

In recent weeks, demonstrators have marched to protest fatal shootings in the area, where deputies killed a Black man on Aug. 31 and a Black teenager in 2018.

After the ambush, a handful of protesters gathered outside the hospital where the deputies were treated and tried to block the emergency room entrance. Videos from the scene recorded protesters shouting expletives at police and at least one yelling “I hope they … die.”

Wednesday’s announcement of the arrest in the shooting of the deputies followed a separate, seemingly unprovoked assault on another law enforcement officer in Southern California.

A Los Angeles police officer was attacked Saturday night inside the Harbor Community police station in San Pedro.

The assailant was recorded on surveillance video as he knocked the officer to the ground inside the station, pistol-whipped him with his own gun and pointed it at his chest. The officer is recovering from his injuries.

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53 COMMENTS

  1. Ballistic testing showed it was the same gun… I’d like to see the data on that. Same model of gun, maybe.

    More incriminating circumstantial evidence would be if this guy is about 4’6″, like the suspect in the video.

  2. Its California, if you think he’s going to go away for along time, remember Zarate, who killed Kate Steinle in that shithole of a state…

      • He got off because the prosecutor charged only first degree murder but no lesser included offenses, such as negligent homicide, nor could she explain the fact that the bullet that struck Steinle ricocheted off the pavement first. The latter fact alone should have signaled to the prosecution that it wasn’t a first degree murder case because it is near impossible to intend to shoot someone with a bank shot.

    • Where do you get that pro-market, pro-second amendment, pro-individual rights Libertarians would allow him to “get off?”

      Obviously you have no idea what a Libertarian is.

  3. That act was part of his reparations that he somehow deserves. Was he the shooter or did he just have possession of the gun.

    • No. If he got his reparations, he would be a law-abiding, wealthy entrepreneur by now. The lack of reparations have been holding him back, forcing him into a life of crime. Or maybe he just has no morals.

      • Yea probably the later portion. Pretty sure, just a guess of course, that reperations would create so much inflation, that million dollars would be equal to a thousand in less than 6 hours after receiving it. Again, just a guess. Platinum might end up being worth more than gold at some point tho…

    • I wonder if parents of the proto-hominid(s) will ever realize that giving their sons and daughters such non-standard names most probably helps guide their lifestyle and definately prejudices their application in the 20 inch stack of applications being reviewed by less “tolerant” persons. Maybe neither of these two points should be true, but most people know that they are… ergo, why are some parents today still prematurely punishing their children?

    • No more then Trump’s lack of condemnation for the KKK. However Trump did try to get it across that it wasn’t the KKK in the streets burn loot murdering. I’ve decided that it shouldn’t be BLM but DLM because most of the atrocities of law enforcement against the citizens have involved druggies or drunks. Biden sure had a hard time putting law and enforcement in the same sentence.

  4. County is requesting bail over $6 million — I wonder if they would request something on the order of $10,000 if the victims were members of the working class rather than ruling class enforcers?

    • I realize that things like this hurt your fragile sense of self-worth, and the fact that your life is worth somewhat (well, considerably, in fact) less than that of a ‘ruling class enforcer’ to the rest of society troubles you, but you’re just going to have to get over it. Your fellow men just don’t give YOUR life the same value as they do to those that risk their lives on a daily basis for others, even though they do it for money, and even though they volunteer to do it, and even though other jobs are just as dangerous, if not MORE dangerous.

      It’s just the way it is. Society looks up to their ‘ruling class enforcers,’ which I assume means all law-enforcement personnel, simply because Society believes that such ‘enforcers’ are necessary for the continuing existence of order, and that the loss of even one diminishes the ability of Society to maintain itself–unlike 7-11 clerks, or shoe salesmen, or certified accountants, or whatever it is that YOU do. That’s why criminals who mess with cops get high bails, and why those who mess with dry-goods purveyors and chimney-sweeps don’t.

      Now, if this really galls you, you could always start some kind of organization to bring attention to the importance of umbrella makers, or baristas, or dental hygienists or barrel-stave cutters, or whatever you are, and raise your status vis-à-vis ‘ruling class enforcers’.

      I don’t hold out much hope for it, though. Except for AntiFaBLM and the LunaticRightSovereignCitizen bunch, two faces of the same butt-hurt anarchist coin, the vast majority of the common folks just LOVE their ‘ruling class enforcers,’ and you’re not likely to make much headway.

      You should just accept it, and move on. Maybe find a hobby.

  5. This article buries the lede.

    It was- allegedly- a ‘ghost gun.’

    I know that we may not subscribe much importance to that… but it WILL be made important.

  6. So he decides to keep the murder weapon AND he can’t be bothered to put five rounds back in? This guy even fails at being a criminal. Let me guess, they weren’t even hollow points.

    • He’s not a gun guy, he’s a crime guy. Most likely he doesn’t even know the magazine is reloadable. Like a disposable lighter, use it up and throw it away. Besides, I doubt he got a free box of cartridges when he bought the gun on the black market (or stole it). We’re not dealing with geniuses here.

  7. His attorney will make the argument that shooting the cops was a 1st amendment expression. Watch him walk.
    Too bad he didn’t raise that gun up when the cops caught up with him and end him right there.

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