Posted on 09/02/2006 3:05:23 PM PDT by radar101
VISTA, CA – The man killed by Oceanside police this week was on parole and had a history of stealing cars and using methamphetamine, according to court records.
Police said Josue Garcia, 23, of Vista, was driving a stolen Chrysler PT Cruiser when a motorcycle officer tried to make a traffic stop Wednesday morning.
Garcia tried to run over the officer in the parking lot of La Valle de Vista apartment complex on Taylor Street, police said, before he was fatally shot.
The Oceanside officer was identified yesterday as Clint Bussey, who has been with the department for 3½ years.
Bussey was responding to the report of the stolen car, which an Oceanside city worker spotted at 8:30 a.m. and followed into Vista.
Attempts to talk to Garcia's family, who lives near the apartment complex where the shooting occurred, were unsuccessful yesterday.
A family friend who answered the door declined to be interviewed.
Garcia, a native Californian, had a criminal record that dates to 2001, when he was convicted of stealing a car, attempting to steal a car and possession of methamphetamine for sale, according to records from San Diego Superior Court in Vista.
He served prison time for the crimes and was back in court in 2002 for a drug charge. A year later, he was convicted of methamphetamine possession and giving false information to a police officer.
He returned to prison in December 2004 for stealing a car and violating his parole. Garcia was released in March.
Kristina Davis: (760) 476-8233; kristina.davis@uniontrib.com
Good riddance and rot in hell, scumbag!
Hey, with a name like "Clint Bussey," he just had to shoot him!
And yeah: good riddance.
Typical of so many in the Oceanside/Vista/Carlsbad area, the parking area is very tight.
There's room for the cars, and you can back out of a space, but then the parking is on one side only so you have a narrow roadway around the inside of the complex, and there's only one exit.
This young man, if he'd done nothing more than try to leave the complex, could not have helped but have passed by the officer. There's literally nowhere else to go.
The officer's claim that the young man tried to hit him with the car looks like another one of those unsubstantiated claims a cop is using as an excuse to fire his weapon at someone in a car.
This story ain't over!
Hey, buster, my wife is visiting in that area ~ she goes by those apartments almost every day. Here's another trigger happy cop whose misbehavior could kill my wife.
Incidents like this make our prisons a better place to live.
No officer!..I won't put my hands up..you'll just have to shoot me...O.K....no problem....so long scum bucket...save the taxpayer some money anyway.
Umm, I would venture to guess that if your wife doesn't steal a car and then try to run over a "trigger happy" cop with it she should be OK (as long as no gangbangers get her).
Is your wife scouting for cars?
Yep. guess the cop should have just let the guy run him over....
(am I allowed to call someone a maroon?)
I've rented one of them before and find it almost unbelievable someone would be stupid enough to actually "steal" one, and now we have this cop claiming the guy aimed it at him ~ so that's why he shot him.
Knowing the place, the car, and the particular attitude in question, I'd suggest the cop started firing wildly at a guy driving a car he couldn't see out of, and it was strictly coincidental that the cop hit the driver.
Plus, it seemed to me this was an Oceanside cop who shot someone in Vista, a different city. Guy didn't even know where he was.
Down the hill and across the freeway in fact. Been there numerous times.
Hardly the barrio.
This is a tight apartment complex. Even a ricochet would probably kill someone else who had nothing whatsoever to do with the crime if, in fact, it's a crime to steal one of these worthless POS "Moby Cars:.
The kid was stupid ~ now he's dead. The cop seems to have been well matched. Both of them thought that car was worth something.
Um, the guy stole a car.
Went to prison.
Got paroled, stole another car, got sent back to prison.
Now, he was released in March, and he's out stealing another car.
And you are saying "he didn't know where he was?
Vista is only a hop skip and a jump from Carlsbad.
The three strike law actually works!!?!
Hey, I've got an idea. Let's wait and see how it plays out before leaping to conclusions.
On the other hand, if you know so much then it is your duty to go to the prosecutor with your knowledge so the cop can be prosecuted.
Does it really strike you as reasonable or justifiable to drive a vehicle towards a cop in close quarters after you've been ordered to stop?
(more informative article also from SignOnSanDiego, by Kristina Davis)
VISTA – An Oceanside police officer fatally shot a car-theft suspect who authorities say was trying to run him down yesterday.
The man was declared dead in the parking lot of an apartment complex on Taylor Street in northeast Vista.
As investigators spent the day at the scene, the stolen PT Cruiser remained parked in the lot, a passenger window shattered and four bullet holes in the windshield.
The county Medical Examiner's Office had not confirmed the identity of the dead man last night.
The officer, whose motorcycle was lying on its side in front of the PT Cruiser, was not hurt. His name was not released. Officials say he has been with the department 3½ years.
It is the Oceanside Police Department's first fatal officer-involved shooting this year, Sgt. Leonard Mata said. In 2005, there were two fatal officer-involved shootings.
At 8:30 a.m. the owner of the PT Cruiser saw the thief drive off with the car outside the Summit at the Lake apartment complex on Calle Las Positas in northeast Oceanside, Mata said.
Five minutes later, dispatchers put out the radio call asking officers to be on the lookout for the stolen car. A city worker driving a water utilities truck who heard the alert spotted the car at Melrose Drive and North Santa Fe Avenue.
He called it in to police and continued to follow the car as it drove into Vista, police said.
Minutes later, an Oceanside motorcycle officer caught up to the stolen car on Taylor Street and followed the car into the La Valle de Vista apartment complex just west of Vista Way, police said.
That's when police say the man tried to run down the officer, and the officer fired several shots at the driver at 8:42 a.m.
“It is unclear whether the officer was on his bike at that moment,” Mata said.
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A woman who asked not to be named said she was loading up the back of her Chevrolet Blazer when she saw the PT Cruiser and the officer drive past her.
“I heard the motorcycle cop's microphone say, 'Motorist, stop the car, get out and get on the ground,' ” the woman said.
The PT Cruiser was in a dead end, she said, with the motorcycle parked behind it.
“I wasn't many feet behind the officer when I noticed the car backing up and the officer started firing.” The back window shattered, and she ran into her apartment during the second volley of gunshots, she said.
The PT Cruiser continued in reverse and crashed into her Blazer, pushing it into a support beam and causing the carport roofing to topple onto other cars.
Sonny Pabloff, a mechanic who was just beginning work at Taskers Auto Center across the street, said he heard four gunshots followed by four or five more.
“I thought maybe someone was messing around with firecrackers,” Pabloff said. “Then I saw about 15 cop cars all come squealing around the corner.”
Allen Raymond, who lives in an apartment across the street, said it sounded more like three sets of several gunshots.
“It was 'Blam! Blam!' Then I heard two or three more, and then another six or seven,” Raymond said. “But they were muffled and quiet. It didn't sound like a real gun.”
Paramedics pulled the man out of the car and laid him on the pavement. They were not able to revive him.
Investigators would not confirm how many shots the officer fired or where the man was hit.
The Sheriff's Department, which patrols Vista, is allowing Oceanside police to investigate the shooting. The District Attorney's Office, which independently investigates every shooting by an officer, also responded to the scene yesterday.
The officer will be placed on administrative leave for 72 hours, which is standard after any officer-involved shooting, Mata said.
Mata commended the city worker who spotted the stolen car, saying he was very observant.
“We encourage people if they see things to call us, but we don't want them to get directly involved,” Mata said. “This worker followed at a safe distance and backed off as soon as the officer caught up.”
It's stretching it to say this kid stole that car ~ its owner was going to win big time and get paid off by his insurance company so he could buy something better.
It would appear none of you people have driven one yet.
I will, of course, write a letter to the heirs and assigns when they sue Oceanside, San Diego county, and the state of New York.
I have driven one.
I wouldn't say it was worthless.
Neither would the owner.
Or the insurance company.
Or the deceased thief.
Dude.
You're out of your depth, here.
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