Deputy Shot; 2 Suspects in Custody

OXNARD — After a massive search, Ventura County sheriff’s investigators arrested a man Wednesday who allegedly shot two deputies during a routine traffic stop in Nyeland Acres.

Just after noon, deputies picked up Emiliano Garcia Orozco, 20, at a home in the Colonia neighborhood of Oxnard.

Deputies had arrested another man, Pablo Cortez De la Torre, 23, about half an hour after the Tuesday night shooting that seriously wounded Senior Deputy Michael Martinez, 41, and grazed his partner, 30-year-old Deputy Jennifer Sezzi.

More than 60 deputies and investigators, using dogs, two helicopters and a search and rescue crew, walked through farm fields and backyards, scouring the area for Orozco.

The door-to-door search of the neighborhood netted only two leather boots, a few footprints and a shirt by early Wednesday morning. But just after noon, investigators said, clues led them to a home on Garfield Avenue in Oxnard, about 2 1/2 miles from the shooting, where they found Orozco.

Martinez was shot three times--two slugs hit his bulletproof vest and a third deflected off his badge and shattered his left shoulder, said Capt. Larry Robertson, who heads the department’s major crimes division.

Robertson coordinated the search from a command post near the scene at Orange Drive and Ventura Boulevard in the small working-class community, nestled between farm fields and the Ventura Freeway.

Martinez may have to undergo surgery for his injury, which hospital officials described as serious but not life-threatening.

Sezzi was grazed in the shoulder by another shot but did not require medical attention. Both deputies work out of the Sheriff’s Department’s Camarillo station. Sezzi will likely return to work in a day or two, said Cmdr. Craig Husbands.

About 9 p.m. Tuesday, Martinez and Sezzi pulled over a dark four-door Chevrolet sedan that had its taillights out.

“It was a routine stop,” Robertson said.

De La Torre, the driver, had been cooperative but did not have a driver’s license, and was asked to exit the car. While looking into the car, the two deputies found open beer cans and Orozco was also asked to step out.

Maria Chavez, who lives with her husband, son and her parents in a home a few feet from the shooting, said she saw the deputies talking to the driver about 9 p.m., about half an hour before the shooting began.

“I had picked up my husband from work, and I remember they were just standing there talking to the driver,” Chavez said.

“It must have been at least a half hour after that that we heard the shots, because we came in, ate dinner and were just cleaning up in the kitchen when we heard the shots,” she said.

Chavez’s husband got the family on the floor and looked out just in time to see two men running down Orange Drive. He could see that one of them had a gun.

Early Wednesday morning, investigators carved out a slug that had lodged in the wooden fence of the Chavez home during the shooting.

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Authorities said the shooting was unprovoked and came just as Martinez was starting to frisk one of the men.

“The guy just pulled out a gun and started firing,” Robertson said. “He hit [Martinez] at very close range.”

Sezzi was able to fire off a few rounds from her gun and call for backup, he said.

“She didn’t even know that she had been hit,” Robertson said.

“She’s just a little traumatized about this happening to her partner,” he added.

The suspects ran down Orange Drive and then into the backyards of homes, startling residents on the way.

“I heard the fence rattling and the dogs barking and looked out the back bedroom window. I saw this guy climb over the fence and run across our back patio and then go back over the fence. A second guy followed,” said Stacey Daughters, 33, who was at home with her boyfriend, their 8-month-old daughter and two other children, 9 and 10 years old.

The men ran into a large lot behind Daughters’ home and apparently split up. The driver, De La Torre, cast off shoes, socks and shirt and then jumped another fence, running across a large muddy field where his footprints were later found, investigators said.

They said Orozco ran back along Orange Drive and then turned onto Friedrich Road, where he was spotted by 14-year-old Daniel Moreno, 15-year-old George Renteria and his 13-year-old brother, Jason.

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“We were just kicking it on the front porch,” said Daniel. “And then we heard like two or three shots, and a little after that we saw this guy in a flannel shirt run by with a gun in his hand.”

Some time after the man ran past the house and turned onto Friedrich Road, the group heard more shots.

Deputies in a patrol car had spotted Orozco who allegedly opened fire on them before they could even get out of the car, officials said.

Margaret Vengroski, 50, heard the shots too, and then a bang on the side of her house where one of the men apparently tried to hide.

Sonny Vasquez, 25, said he heard the shots and went out of his family’s Friedrich Road home to take a look.

“I was in the street and all the sudden all these deputies started yelling at me to get inside,” Vasquez said.

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As he started walking around his lowered El Camino to go back inside, he tripped over something in the dark.

“There was this guy trying to get under the car to hide,” Vasquez said.

The man looked up and put a finger to his mouth, pleading that Vasquez not tell deputies where he was. Instead, Vasquez kicked him in the face.

“I knew something was up so I just kicked him,” he said.

The man jumped up just as Vasquez’s brother and sister drove up. He pointed his gun at the three and told them in Spanish to get out of his way or he would shoot.

The man, whom authorities believe was Orozco, ran across the road, jumped another fence and then slipped into a drainage canal. After running down the canal a hundred yards or so, authorities believe he got out and then ran across a lettuce field.

De La Torre, barefoot and without a shirt, was spotted on Almond Drive, where authorities said he surrendered to deputies.

“He’s been very cooperative and insists he had nothing to do with the shooting,” Robertson said.