MacDonald case in review

Orange County prosecutors are reviewing the sheriff’s department’s investigation into the Huntington Beach police-involved fatal shooting of an 18-year-old woman in August.

Huntington Beach Police on Tuesday, after receiving the sheriff’s report, released the names of the two Huntington Beach police officers involved in the fatal shooting of Ashley MacDonald on Aug. 25. It’s routine for sheriff’s investigators to review a municipality’s police-involved shooting and then turn it over to prosecutors who will decide whether or not the shooting was justified.

Authorities on Tuesday would not say whether sheriff’s investigators considered the shooting justified.

Officers Read Parker, 28, and Shawn Randell, 26, shot and killed MacDonald after she advanced at them with a knife, Huntington Beach police said.

The officers found MacDonald at Sun View Park off Edinger Avenue after receiving a call of a young woman on Sher Avenue acting bizarrely, police said.

Randell, who served on the Newport Beach police department as an officer for three years, has been with the Huntington Beach force since January. Parker began with the department in 2005.

Huntington Beach police, who had rebuffed the Independent’s earlier requests for the names of the officers involved in the shooting, released the names after learning the sheriff’s review was complete, Lt. Craig Junginger said.

“The city attorney said to withhold the names until the criminal invest- igation was completed,” Junginger said. “We decided at the point when the case was submitted to the district attorney’s office that it was complete.”

Sheriff’s investigators turned the case over to prosecutors on Monday, said Susan Kang Schroeder, a spokeswoman for the district attorney’s office.

“We just started reviewing the case to see if there was a crime committed or not,” Schroeder said. “We may even send it back for further investigation.”

Huntington Beach Police Chief Ken Small, in an earlier interview, said the names were not released because threats were made against the officers.

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