Knife-wielding man takes on officers, K-9

Marisa O’Neil

A man wielding a knife caused police to evacuate a shopping center

and kept officers at bay for 40 minutes Wednesday night, despite

being shot with rubber bullets more than a dozen times.

Police finally arrested 23-year-old Fernando Barrios-Jimenez after

8 p.m. Wednesday inside the yard of a towing company in the 2900

block of Randolph Avenue. But before the standoff was over, police

had used rubber bullets, a stun-gun, pepper spray and a police dog.

They also evacuated a nearby vegan restaurant, a yoga studio, a

scuba school and other businesses in the eclectic anti-mall the Camp.

“All the people from the restaurant were out there,” Native Foods

server Angie Weaver said of the evacuation. “All the people from the

yoga class were out there; all the people in wetsuits were out there;

a girl who just got out of the shower and was in a towel was out

there. And it was cold.”

Officers first got a call at 7:30 p.m. about a shirtless man

waving a knife and running south on Bristol Street near Paularino

Avenue, Costa Mesa police Sgt. Marty Carver said. When police cars

and a helicopter arrived at the scene, the man took off running south

on Bristol, he said.

Barrios-Jimenez ran across Baker Street in front of traffic and

ended up in the parking lot of the Camp, police said.

Police officers entered Native Foods, ordered everyone to the

ground and told employees to lock the doors, Weaver said.

Officers repeatedly ordered Barrios-Jimenez in English and Spanish

to drop the knife, but he wouldn’t comply and continued to wave it

around, Carver said.

Officers then shot the man 11 times with rubber rounds from their

40-millimeter, “less-than-lethal” shotguns.

He still didn’t drop the knife.

Then they tried pepper spray.

He didn’t drop the knife and clambered over a barbed-wire fence

and into an adjacent towing yard.

Matthew Liburdi, who was leading a diving class at his Liburdi’s

Scuba Center, said he heard the shots and saw a shirtless man with

long hair climbing over the fence.

“It was a big ordeal,” Liburdi said of the incident.

Once in the towing yard, Barrios-Jimenez holed up near tanks that

officers believed contained oxygen or some sort of combustible gas,

Carver said.

Officers again ordered him to drop the knife and he again refused,

police said. Instead, he began cutting hoses to the tanks.

Fearing the gas would explode, police evacuated the nearby

businesses, sending a full dining room of customers into the parking

lot and halting the yoga and diving classes.

Police fired more rubber bullets at the man, but he pulled out a

lighter and managed to ignite some of the gas, Carver said.

A sergeant at the scene also used a Taser stun gun, the first time

one has been used by the department in the field, Carver said. The

gun was not fired but was placed against the man’s skin to deliver a

shock.

A police K-9 unit from Santa Ana then arrived, and the man dropped

the knife, police said. The handler sent the dog to subdue

Barrios-Jimenez, who put the dog in a headlock.

Finally, officers managed to arrest the man, Carver said. He was

hospitalized with multiple dog bites and bruises and is being charged

with brandishing a knife, resisting arrest, arson and being under the

influence of a controlled substance.

He is being held in lieu of $50,000 bail.

The dog, Carver said, was not injured.

Weaver, who works in the vegan restaurant, groaned sympathetically

when she heard the suspect had allegedly placed the dog in a

headlock.

“We don’t go for that around here,” she said.