PALM SPRINGS, Calif._Two Palms Springs police officers were fatally shot and another wounded Saturday while responding to family disturbance call, and a SWAT team remains at the scene, police said.
The shooting occurred when the officers went to the scene in the 2700 block of Cypress Road shortly after noon, police said. They tried to make contact with the suspect, who threatened to shoot the officers through the front door.
"They were responding to a simple family disturbance and (the gunman) elected to open fire," an emotional police Chief Bryan Reyes told reporters during an afternoon news conference.
Reyes identified the two victims as Officer Jose Gilbert "Gil" Vega, a 35-year veteran of the department who was supposed to retire in December, and Officer Lesley Zerebny, who has been with the department for a year and a half and is the mother of a 4-month-old. He said the third officer, who was being treated at a hospital, was doing well and was helping investigators.
"Today Palm Springs lost two of its brave officers," Reyes said, his voice quivering. "They go out every day with their boots on the ground. They gave their all for you."
Reyes said it was still an active scene, and the officers believed the suspect might still be in the house. He said police would have an update later Saturday on the suspect and the department's history of calls for service at the residence.
Frances Serrano, who lives on Cypress Road, across the street from where the shooting took place, was coming out of her garage around noon Saturday when her neighbor came bursting out of his own garage.
The man sought Serrano's attention.
"He said, "Help. I need help. My son is in the house, and he's crazy. He has a gun. He's ready to shoot all the police,' " Serrano recalled he father saying.
The father "was very nervous," Serrano said. "He was afraid of his son."
Serrano, 65, said she called authorities, and as soon as she began walking back into her house, she heard gunshots, "starting with a loud _ I mean really loud _ 'bang!' "
Law enforcement and the suspect appeared to be exchanging gunfire, she said.
"There were police everywhere," Serrano said. "I looked out the window and saw police with rifles." Serrano said she remembered her neighbor's son, who she believed was in his mid-30s, as "a very nice young man _ very polite."
By 5:50 p.m. with police on every street corner and officers in helicopters overhead continuing their search, Serrano said she was "really scared," and had locked her windows and doors.
"Some are saying (the suspect) is still in the father's house. Others say he's on the run," she said. "I knew there were problems before between the father and this young man. But I never imagined he would do something like this. I don't want to believe it.
"I feel so sad for the officers," she added. "It's like a nightmare."
Georgie Eden said she was outside doing yard work with her son and her husband when "all of a sudden I hear this pow, pow, pow pow."
"At first I'm thinking, perhaps it was party poppers in the neighbor's garden or something, and my husband's like, 'Uh, that's gunfire _ get in the house.' "
Eden then heard several more rounds of gunfire that seemed to continue for 10 to 20 minutes, she said.
"So we stayed indoors," she said, "and it was kind of, pretty scary."
Nothing like this has happened during the three years Eden has lived in Palm Springs, she said.
"It's horrible to even think that officers are out there and very much at risk because of guns and people that have a lot of mental health issues," she said. "Just being a human being, it (hits) close to home."
Reached by phone just before 3 p.m., a manager of a nearby hotel said a helicopter had been circling overhead for the past hour and a half.
Alex Thomas, a manager at The Monkey Tree Hotel on Racquet Club Road, about half a mile east on the scene, estimated that about 10 squad cars had raced down the road, sirens blaring, within the last hour.
She said she did not hear or see any shots fired or know why police were swarming the scene.
But she described the areas as "real residential."
"There's a little school next to us," she said. "We're about the only business."
Having a helicopter buzzing about was "highly unusual," she added
Lee Weigel, the city's former police chief and a onetime city councilman, learned of the shooting while out of town Saturday at his son's baseball game.
Weigel's friend, who coaches another baseball team, walked up solemnly. At first, Weigel said, he heard that one officer had been shot. Before long, he learned it was three.
"It makes you weak in the knees," he said.
The police department is relatively small and everyone knows one another, said Weigel, who worked in the department for 32 years.
"It's a family," he said. "This is the worst incident in the history of Palm Springs in terms of officer shootings ... . This is shocking, a blow to the entire department and community."
