Man shot and killed by Santa Ana police after chase
Santa Ana police gang detectives shot and killed a man Sunday following a foot chase, authorities said.
At 4:33 p.m., gang suppression detectives were patrolling in the 400 block of South Birch Street due to recent shootings and gang activity in the neighborhood, according to the Santa Ana Police Department.
During their patrol, detectives tried to talk to a man who was getting out of a vehicle in an alley.
But the man ran out of the alley onto Birch Street and ignored detectives’ orders to stop, according to police.
That’s when detectives fired at the man, striking him.
The man, whose identity has not been released, was pronounced dead at 4:42 p.m., police said.
Police Cpl. Anthony Bertagna said he did not know if the man was armed or if a weapon was found at the scene. Bertagna said the Orange County district attorney and the department’s homicide detectives are investigating the shooting.
The shooting comes almost three months after police fatally shot a man following a dispute in a strip mall parking lot.
David Contreras Jr., 33, of Santa Ana was sitting in a truck about 11:30 p.m. on Nov. 6 when two officers confronted him in the vacant lot on Edinger Avenue and Sullivan Street, police said.
A fight erupted between the officers and the man. During the brawl, one of the officers used a Taser. Then both officers fired at the man, who later died at a hospital, police said.
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