A 51-year-old illegal immigrant who allegedly shot and wounded a sheriff’s deputy has been arrested on Sep. 5 after a 45-minute high-speed pursuit.
Merced County Sheriff Vern Warnke said that Guadalupe Lopez-Herrera, the suspect, started fleeing from the city of Paso Robles in San Luis Obispo County. The chase was later handed over to the California Highway Patrol (CHP). Warnke said that the suspect fired one shot at the CHP before he was arrested, reported the Merced Sun-Star.
The pickup truck he was using was disabled through the deployment of a spike strip in Fresno county.
Nobody was hurt in Thursday’s shooting.
It’s unclear whether Lopez-Herrera had an attorney.
A warrant was issued for Lopez-Herrera’s arrest on Wednesday afternoon after authorities say he fired at deputies through a fence at a home in Dos Palos, south of Modesto.
Authorities had gone there to arrest him following a weekend domestic violence report.
“We started an investigation on this person as of Saturday,” said Warnke. “He’d been involved with several violent domestic violence cases and had been on the run, so to speak, for a length of time. We had tasked our (Sheriff’s Tactics And Reconnaissance) to locate and apprehend this person. He also had a warrant for his arrest.”
As the police approached the suspect’s house to investigate further, Lopez-Herrera shot at the officers through a fence. An officer was hit in the bullet-proof vest and on the leg above the knee.
Warnke said the officer is “recovering well.”
Merced County court records show that Lopez-Herrera has a history of domestic violence. He was charged with domestic violence and pleaded no contest on Jan. 23. He was ordered not to possess any firearms and sentenced 45 days in prison, plus 3 years on probation.
“We had him in our custody in January of this year, and because of the folks in Sacramento limiting our ability to cooperate with ICE, we could not turn him over,” Warnke said. “This kind of rings of what happened to Ronil Singh in Newman.”
“Not only has this guy been a proven danger prior to this incident, the attempted murder of one of my sergeants, the attempted murder of a California Highway Patrol officer because of this when he should have been not in this country and placed back in the country of origin,” he added.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
