It was a dark and stormy night. OK, it wasn’t stormy, but it was dark when San Diego County Sheriff deputies responded to a report of a suspicious man wearing a ski mask in a La Presa, CA neighborhood. Before they could get there, though, he ski-daddled, so they broadened their search. Two deputies noticed and open gate to one house’s back yard and, thinking it suspicious, moved in with guns drawn. Then Jennifer Orey, who made the initial call, announced herself . . .
“She saw a flashlight and identified herself as the homeowner and he shot her,” said Orey’s father, Dennis Morgan.
Jumpy much there, Deputy Dawg?
Authorities said they did not know exactly what prompted the shooting. They said the woman did not have anything in her hands and was not armed at the time.
There’s a fair-sized kerfuffle over just where Orey was struck by the unnamed constable’s round. Here’s the department’s account:
“At some point, while in the backyard of the residence, there was contact between the deputies, who had their weapons drawn, and a female resident of the home,” Nesbit said. “During that contact, one of the deputies fired from his service weapon. The female was struck in the arm by the round.”
But her family’s calling bullshit.
“You know what, you guys need to get your story straight,” said Dennis Morgan, Orey’s father. “She wasn’t shot in the arm she was shot in the chest.”
Orey’s sister-in-law, Kristin Arzaga-Morgan, told 10News Orey made it through surgery early Monday to repair the wounds from the bullet that entered her chest, exited through her bicep and struck her pinky finger. ”
Part of a bullet ricocheted off and hit her in the pinky, and they also had to do a little bit of repair to her pinky as well,” said Arzaga-Morgan.
San Diego County Sheriff Bill Gore said that is not true. Gore told 10News he has been monitoring the situation and said with assurance that Orey had been shot in the arm and that her pinky was “scratched.”
Since Orey’s expected to survive, exactly where the woman was shot should be cleared up in the fullness of time. But if Orey had followed the advice of the deputy with the itchy trigger finger, things probably would have gotten a whole lot worse. He told her to lie on her back until the paramedics arrived. But Orey knows something about first aid.
Her father said Orey was the first woman accepted in the Navy’s Air and Sea Rescue team and she knew if she stayed on her back she would die, so she turned on her side and waited.
We’ll leave it to TTAG’s official EMT Nick to deconstruct that part of the after-action report (UPDATE FROM NICK: Plausible). In the mean time, Orey, who remained conscious, just wanted to know why the unnamed officer shot her.
“After he shot her, she looked at him and said, ‘Why did you shoot me?'” said Morgan.
Orey told her father the deputy never answered her.
Guess the cops are learning that whole STFU thing, too.