25 sheriff’s recruits hurt, 5 critically, on training run in Whittier: ‘Devastation everywhere’
Five people, including four deputies and a city worker, were injured Sunday after a training run in Whittier. The injuries included a leg fracture, leg burns and internal bleeding. (File photo by John King/Cronkite News)
Five people, including four Whittier deputies and a city employee, were injured Sunday after a training run in Whittier.
The injuries included a leg fracture, leg burns and internal bleeding. It brought down Whittier police Chief Jim Kepner, who was traveling with the department’s recruits, and Whittier Commissioner William “Skip” McDaniel, who was riding behind them.
The five were injured after a training run in Whittier’s West Hills neighborhood.
A Whittier deputy and a city worker were killed in an apparent gang shooting last November. Last week, Deputy Ron Johnson, 39, of Lakewood, was indicted in federal court by a federal grand jury in Sacramento on charges of racketeering, kidnapping, obstruction of justice and witness tampering, and those indictments are also in the courts of the city of Lakewood.
The injured recruit was a 22-year-old Whittier high school teacher who was driving a police car with police markings.
According to the Sheriff’s Department, the car had only three other occupants.
“This incident is devastating to the department,” Sheriff’s Department spokeswoman Kim Brunner said.
According to the report from Lake County Coroner’s Office, the three people in the car were: A 32-year-old man from Chicago, an 18-year-old woman from Las Vegas and a 23-year-old woman from California.
The coroner said the three people in the car were dead when they were found in the SUV. Another person had been transported to the hospital with a cut to the leg.
The injured recruit, who was driving, told investigators the shooting occurred in a parking lot when he heard someone call out “heel” in Spanish.
A report from the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department said the recruiter was found in a building at the end of the parking lot. The sheriff’s report said he died at a hospital after being shot and transported to Sacramento General Hospital.
The report did not say why the recruit was in the building.
Sheriff’s department spokesman Keith Murphy said
