Santa Ana Officers Shoot 2 Suspects

Two men were shot by Santa Ana police in within six hours after they each allegedly threatened officers, authorities said Monday.

Both men survived and were taken to hospitals, police spokesman Balthazar De La Riva said.

The first incident began at 8 p.m. Sunday after calls to police from drivers who said a man, identified later as Cody Lopez Hernandez, 28, was running in and out of traffic on East MacArthur Boulevard.

An Orange County Transportation Authority driver said Lopez Hernandez attacked his bus and banged on its windows so hard that two were cracked, De La Riva said.

Lopez Hernandez lunged at a responding officer with a screwdriver, De La Riva said. The officer shot him with a stun gun, but Lopez Hernandez got up and lunged again, authorities said. The officer stunned him a second time, but Lopez Hernandez got up yet again, they said. At that point, the officer shot him with his handgun in the upper torso, De La Riva said.

The second incident occurred shortly before 2 a.m. Monday, when officers patrolling Bristol Street at McFadden Avenue ran the license plate of a passing van in their computer and learned it had been reported stolen Saturday. The officers tried to pull the vehicle over, but the driver refused and led them on a chase, De La Riva said.

The van crashed at Pine and Baker streets, and patrol cars surrounded it.

The driver then threw the van into reverse and rammed one of the patrol cars. An officer then shot the driver several times, De La Riva said.

The driver was identified as Marcos Sanchez, 19. The passenger, a juvenile whose name was not released because of his age, was taken into custody. Police did not know where they lived.

De La Riva declined to release the names of the two officers involved in the shootings.

The Orange County district attorney’s office investigates all police-involved shootings in the county and has interviewed the officers, De La Riva said.

*

garrett.therolf@latimes.com