Suspect Shot by Police Was Unarmed

The suspected drug dealer a police officer shot to death Saturday was unarmed, Westminster police said Sunday.

Michael Scott Coolidge, 35, of Huntington Beach was shot after a brief car chase and an attempt to run away from three officers.

Police said Coolidge ignored several commands to stop and then appeared to reach for a gun in his waistband before an officer fired twice.

“He crouched, turned and squatted,” Westminster Police Lt. Mike Schliskey said. “He was stooped down with his hand in his waistband. The officer obviously thought he had a gun or he wouldn’t have fired.”

Coolidge was shot once in the chest and once in the left arm, Sgt. Tom Blackburn said.

A day after the shooting shook up a working-class neighborhood, Westminster police refused to release the name of the officer who shot Coolidge, citing his safety. Schliskey said Coolidge was the first person the officer had shot.

The 11-year veteran officer is on paid administrative leave while the district attorney’s office investigates the incident, which is routine when an officer shoots someone.

The coroner’s office completed its autopsy Sunday but referred all calls to Westminster police.

Two neighbors who witnessed the shooting said police went out of their way to coax Coolidge into surrendering.

“I believe in my heart that they did their jobs,” Billie Jo Henkerd said. “They didn’t want to hurt that dude. They gave him so many chances: ‘Surrender. Give up. Give up.’ He just didn’t.”

Westminster police policy says deadly force can be used “to protect the officer or others from what reasonably appears to be an immediate threat of death or serious bodily injury.”

Police said the shooting took place in an area known for drug dealing after an officer allegedly saw Coolidge sell methamphetamine to a woman. The officer pulled over Coolidge’s black Chevrolet Camaro about 1:40 p.m. Saturday. Coolidge stopped for a moment and sped off.

The officer, joined by two other cruisers, chased him for about a block until Coolidge ran a red light and crashed into a car on Westminster Boulevard at Rancho Road. The Camaro skidded about 50 yards, witnesses said, and slammed into a light pole outside a liquor store.

Coolidge jumped out of the car and ran east on Westminster. He ran south on Hammon Place and west on Jane Street, where he was shot.

Police said witnesses disagree on whether the two shots were rapid fire or whether there was a pause between them.

Although Coolidge didn’t have a gun on his person when he was killed, officers were searching the neighborhood Sunday for a weapon he might have ditched, Schliskey said.

Coolidge was a distinctive and familiar, if unwelcome, sight on Jane Street, neighbors said, and he recently started dating a woman who lived in the area.

He usually wore expensive sunglasses, black leather driving gloves, shorts and a T-shirt and carried a cellular phone. Neighbors said his arms and torso were a maze of tattoos. His stomach was covered with “O.C.” in large letters and the word “slut” adorned his shoulder.

Schliskey said Coolidge was a gang member who had a history of arrests for methamphetamine possession and for being a felon in possession of a gun. There was a no-bail warrant for his arrest. Schliskey declined to elaborate.

Neighbors said police told them Coolidge recently had been behind bars.

“He wasn’t the kind of guy you wanted in the neighborhood around kids,” said Wes Thompson, a witness to the shooting.

Coolidge was the fourth person shot to death by Orange County law enforcement officers this year. Westminster police have killed five people, including Coolidge, in the last 10 years.

Early Sunday, a woman neighbors said was Coolidge’s mother came to the Westminster neighborhood. She told them that her son had cancer--a detail police could not confirm.

“Where did he die?” she asked, her voice cracking, her eyes red.

They pointed to the edge of Jane Street, where she deposited a pot of purple silk flowers, a white candle and a bitter card. Its mocking inscription read, “Way to Go.”

“Did they find a gun? No,” read the card. “Or this was Mike’s way out of this sick [expletive] world. Can’t you cops get street training. You can’t help unless you know what it’s like to live on the street. . . .

“The cops think they took out a Bad Boy! But they just took out a mother’s son.”