Crazy Stuff On The Sacramento Street

Wild gun action in the NE part of town:

A day of carnage by a suspect armed with a rifle left two area deputies dead, a motorist gravely injured and another deputy wounded in a 30-mile crime spree that triggered a massive manhunt by hundreds of law enforcement officers.

Just before 4 p.m., officials announced the arrest of Marcelo Marquez, 34, who had been hiding in an Auburn home for hours.

...The events of the day, which Jones called a “perfect storm” of attacks by a suspect whose motive remains unknown, began at 10:22 a.m. when Oliver and his partner approached a vehicle in the parking lot with a man and a woman inside. Jones said it still is not clear what led Oliver, a 12-year veteran of the problem-oriented policing team, to approach the vehicle.

But he said the man inside fired a rifle at Oliver at close range, striking him in the forehead before Oliver could return fire. The deputy’s partner was able to return fire, but it was unclear whether he struck the assailant, who fled and attempted to carjack another vehicle down the street in the 700 block of Howe Avenue.

The driver of that vehicle apparently refused to surrender the keys and was shot in the head. The victim, whose condition was not known Friday afternoon, fell backward into their car and the assailants fled. A short distance away, the pair carjacked a white convertible Ford Mustang, then abandoned it several blocks away in a residential neighborhood.

There, they confronted a gardener and demanded his pickup truck. After helping the man to unhitch his landscaping trailer from the red Ford truck, the couple took off, leaving the bloodied Mustang on the street.

From there, the pair apparently fled up Fair Oaks Boulevard to Carmichael, where a Sacramento County parks ranger spotted them changing clothes and reported the sighting to authorities. A massive police response shut down access to the area near Fair Oaks and Van Alstine and forced 19 San Juan Unified Schools, as well as Jesuit High School, to lock down for a time.

But those precautions were canceled after it became clear that the pickup had fled the area and headed up Interstate 80 to Auburn. Placer County sheriff’s deputies responding to sightings of the pickup approached the vehicle and were wounded by gunfire from it. Both were taken to Sutter Rosevillle Medical Center; the sheriff’s department confirmed about 4:20 p.m. that one of the deputies had died but the other would survive.

At some point after that, the female who accompanied the gunman was apprehended, and authorities believe the suspect fled into an residential area near Placer High School, forcing that school and others to lock down their campuses.