By HEATHER LAKE and WILLIAM P. WARFORD
Valley Press Staff Writers
LAKE LOS ANGELES - An armored Sheriff's Department posse fired hundreds of rounds, used a battering ram and tear gas grenades, apparently triggering an inferno at a ramshackle desert building complex Friday night where the confessed killer of Deputy Stephen Sorensen was barricaded.
Shortly after midnight today, a body believed to be that of Donald Charles Kueck, 52, was found in the debris of one of the structures, weapon at his side. A ranking Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department official at the scene said authorities believed the gunman was inside the one of four structure when it went up in flames shortly after 8 p.m. Friday.
After having cell phone contact with the suspect, they heard nothing further from him in the hours after the fire erupted.
"We are not going in until this fire extinguishes itself," Mike Soderberg, the department's chief of detectives, said late Friday night. "Every building's on fire. He couldn't run without us seeing him."
The fire leveled a house, a garage and two sheds. It blazed out of control because firefighters could not approach structures that might hold an armed assailant. When the garage ignited, Kueck bolted, racing to a shed. Soon after, the shed burst into flames.
The posse of about 200 peace officers laid siege to the desert building complex where the man suspected of killing Sorensen was holed up. The gunman traded shots with deputies during the evening until the Los Angeles Police Department ramming vehicle assaulted the complex.
Soderberg said deputies lobbed incendiary grenades, battling a "formidable adversary" they believed was armed with an assault rifle and ready to fight to the death.
"His actions tonight certainly tells us his mind-set," Soderberg said. "This guy's a desert rat. He's eluded us for six days."
Earlier in the day, Los Angeles County Sheriff Leroy D. Baca said the suspect would be taken "dead or alive." The suspect was located Friday in the desert dwelling on Palmdale Boulevard near 185th Street East after the owner of the home, a longtime friend of Kueck's, tipped off authorities.
Kueck was spotted in the morning and surrounded by officers who had been searching for him for six days, since the Saturday killing of Sorensen, who was shot during a trespassing investigation in Llano.
The siege on the suspect's hideout followed by a day the funeral for Sorensen, which was attended by 3,000 people, including hundreds of public safety officers.
Notified of the desert siege, Baca flew by helicopter from the Los Angeles basin to the scene about 18 miles east of Palmdale.
According to Baca, Kueck alerted those hunting for him, either accidentally or on purpose, by pressing a button on Sorensen's radio around noon. The gunman apparently took the radio and Sorensen's service weapon in the aftermath of the deputy's killing. When reached by sheriff's negotiators around 3 p.m., Kueck admitted killing Sorensen, Baca said.
The suspect also reportedly advised officers that he killed Sorensen because he would not tolerate an intrusion by a police officer.
In the days since the deputy's killing, it's been learned that whoever killed Sorensen bound the lawman's body to a vehicle and dragged it.
"By his own words, … no cop would come on his property and tell him what to do, and if a cop tried to come on his property, he would kill him," Baca said Friday during a news conference near the scene.
"Though he has fulfilled his promise and tragically ended the life of a great human being and a great deputy sheriff … now it's his turn to face his reality, and we want him to come down alive," the sheriff said.
Still, "We're down to what is known commonly in our business as, 'We will take him dead or alive,' " Baca said.
Throughout the afternoon, officers attempted to communicate with Kueck via Sorensen's radio and asked him to call his daughter on the telephone.
Around 6 p.m., at least one shot was heard, and deputies undertook a radio roll call to make sure no one had been hit.
Shortly afterward, authorities began using a Los Angeles Police Department ramming vehicle called "the Bear" to penetrate some of the building walls where Kueck was believed to be hiding.
Except for the approach of the LAPD vehicle, the suspect kept officers at bay with a .223 caliber assault rifle and other weapons, possibly including two of Sorensen's own guns.
That assault rifle had the power to penetrate deputies' protective vests, vehicle doors and building walls, Baca said.
"We're dealing with someone who can inflict harm from a great distance," he said.
Based on information obtained from informants earlier in the week, it was believed that Kueck had been going without medication needed for an unspecified ailment.
By 5 p.m., the suspect was believed to be tired and in pain. Soderberg said the suspect's emotions ran up and down the scale during their communications.
More shots were heard at about 7:30 p.m., and officers on the scene were waiting for the arrival of a bulldozer.
Officers have been seeking Kueck since finding Sorensen's body near 210th Street East and Avenue T-8 on Aug. 2.
A community deputy in Lake Los Angeles, Sorensen was helping to plan the annual parade for the Lake L.A. Days Festival when he left to investigate the trespassing call. About 11:30 a.m. he called his station to report he was going to the scene - a Llano residence with a trailer and outbuildings.
In the aftermath of Sorensen's killing, deputies searching the desert investigated a trailer, believed to be Kueck's, where they found an assortment of chemicals, some used in the manufacture of methamphetamine.
Deputies don't know much about the incident Sorensen was investigating. The trespass call was not reported into the sheriff's station, but Sorensen probably saw something suspicious or was told by some person in the community about the trespasser, county Under Sheriff William Stonich said Sunday.
At 12:12 p.m. - 30 minutes after Sorensen called to say where he was heading - a neighbor called the Palmdale Sheriff's Station and reported that he heard "approximately a half-dozen gunshots" in the area, Stonich said. Lancaster and Palmdale deputies raced to Llano searching for Sorensen.
Sorensen came to the Antelope Valley from El Segundo more than a decade ago, seeking a new way of life in a rural atmosphere. His supervisor, Capt. Carl Deeley, said Sorensen also understood that his job was more than enforcing the law in suburban tract areas. His duties included an area of the desert known as a home to outlaws and drug labs.
Thursday, more than 3,000 mourners packed the pews of Lancaster Baptist Church to bid goodbye to the first deputy slain in the Valley in more than a decade. The last, Richard B. Hammack, was killed during a drug raid in 1992.
Among those in attendance at the service were Gov. Gray Davis; Los Angeles County supervisors Michael D. Antonovich, Zev Yaroslavsky and Don Knabe; and Assemblywoman Sharon Runner, R-Lancaster. Also in attendance were District Attorney Steve Cooley, Los Angeles Police Department Chief William Bratton, Los Angeles County Fire Department and California Highway Patrol officials and the city leadership of Lancaster and Palmdale.
Valley Press Staff Writer Bob Wilson contributed to this report.