http://www.modestobee.com/local/story/9745305p-10612066c.html
CERES — A United States Marine shot two police officers, one fatally, Sunday night. In a second gun battle three hours later, officers shot and killed the suspect.
Ceres Police Sgt. Howard Stevenson died from his injuries at an area hospital, a spokesman for the Stanislaus County Sheriff's Department said this morning.
Officer Sam Ryno was listed in critical condition at an area hospital Monday morning. Both men had been shot several times with an automatic rifle.
Three hours after the shooting, police shot and killed the suspect when they found him behind a nearby home. Police said Monday that the 19-year-old Modesto man, reported absent without leave from Camp Pendleton Saturday night,
had served in Iraq and did not want to return.
The officers responded to a call made by an employee at George's Liquors on Caswell Avenue at 8:07 p.m. Sunday. The employee told emergency dispatchers that a man holding a rifle and acting crazy had just left the store and was walking down the street.
Gunfire erupted shortly after police arrived. Both officers had been shot several times, Modesto police spokesman Rick Applegate said late Sunday night. The officers also exchanged gunfire with the suspect before he fled.
Witnesses told police the suspect ducked into a home on Caswell Avenue about two blocks from the liquor store. Officers from the Ceres, Modesto, Turlock and Newman police departments as well as the Stanislaus and Merced Sheriff's offices and the California Highway Patrol responded.
Nearly one square mile of the city's roads were closed as a California Highway Patrol helicopter hovered overhead and police officers and SWAT teams took positions around the home.
Police officers shot out street lights to diminish the suspects vision, Applegate said.
"We can't have a city employee turn off the lights because in order to do that, he would have put himself in harm's way and in the line of fire of the suspect," he said Sunday night.
At first, residents in the area were told to lock their doors and turn off their lights. Then about 10 p.m., officers began evacuating homes.
At about 11:30 p.m., the suspect was spotted behind the home. Applegate said the suspect "initiated a gunfight."
The suspect was shot in the alley. His name or condition were not available early this morning.
Both officers have been members of the Ceres police department for several years.
The streets around the area of both shootings were still closed today.
Parents of students at Caswell Elementary School, one block north of the shooting, were told to drop their children off in front of the school Monday morning.