(KMJ) – Hundreds gather outside the Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office Sunday to remember a Deputy Sergeant killed in a weekend ambush.
38-year-old Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Sergeant Damon Gutzwiller was killed Saturday after deputies responded to a 911 call around 1:30 p.m. about a suspicious van in Ben Lomond, an unincorporated area near Santa Cruz.
When deputies arrived, a white van pulled away and deputies followed. The van went down a driveway at a home, and the deputies were ambushed by gunfire and explosives after getting out of their vehicle.
Gutzwiller was wounded and later died at a hospital. Another deputy was wounded by gunfire or shrapnel and struck by a vehicle as the suspect fled. A third officer from the California Highway Patrol was shot in his hand.
The suspect, 32-year-old Steven Carrillo, was shot during his arrest. He was treated at the hospital for non-life-threatening injuries.
Now, the FBI and local investigators are trying to determine a possible link between this ambush-style killing and that of a federal officer who was fatally shot outside the U.S. courthouse in Oakland more than a week ago.
