Sacramento-area shooting sees four officers wounded

ROSEVILLE, Calif. – A federal immigration officer was shot and three local police officers were wounded Friday during a violent confrontation with a suspect in a Sacramento suburb.

Helicopters were circling overhead and armored vehicles and other police cars flocked to the area Friday night as officers attempted to capture the suspect. The shooting occurred Friday afternoon in Roseville, a suburb about 20 miles northeast of the state capital.

In anticipation of the standoff lasting through the night, local residents were being bused to a community center to spend the night.

Roseville police Lt. Cal Walstad told reporters that officers had the suspect surrounded in a house and had spoken with him on the phone, although he was not in custody. Walstad identified him as Samuel Nathan Duran, 32, of Roseville.

Walstad said the federal immigration officer was shot in the leg as he and other officers made initial contact at about 3 p.m. with Duran, a wanted parolee. During a later exchange of gunfire, after Duran fled, two Roseville police officers were hit by gunshots – one in the jaw and the other in the shoulder – and a third officer sustained shrapnel wounds from rounds that hit near them, Walstad said. Two of the officers were listed in stable condition at Sutter Roseville Medical Center, and a third was in serious condition.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman Virginia Kice said that agency’s officer was stable and alert after being taken to Sutter Roseville Medical Center.

The incident created scenes of panic and chaos in a typically quiet middle-class suburb of about 120,000. Walstad described multiple shooting sites as the suspect tried to escape a swarm of descending law enforcement agents, and reporters on the scene described hearing several volleys of gunfire.

Walstad said Duran was believed to be carrying an “assault-type weapon.”

Law enforcement officers had been looking for Duran in the area for at least 10 days before finding him Friday afternoon, Walstad said. When they found him, Walstad added, he opened fire, wounding the federal immigration officer, who was on the scene to provide support for the Roseville police.

Walstad said the house the suspect is in is on the corner of Sixth Street and Hampton Drive; when Duran first entered the home, the residents called 911, and police advised them to escape through a sliding glass door in the back.