Authorities believe the man who gunned down a Mendocino County sheriff's deputy Wednesday left a 450-mile trail of violence and death that stretched from Eugene, Ore., to the small California harbor town of Fort Bragg.
As a fuller picture began to emerge Thursday of the scope of the crime spree, honors flowed in for Deputy Ricky Del Fiorentino, who died in a spray of gunfire from an assault-style rifle just outside the town where he had served for 26 years.
Gov. Jerry Brown ordered Capitol flags to be flown at half staff, the Legislature convened in his memory and officials around the state and colleagues continued to offer testimonials.
"Ricky was a great guy. You never knew if he had a bad day because he was always smiling, always happy. . . . Not only a good cop, but a good person," said Sheriff's Capt. Greg Van Patten.
The carnage began in Eugene, where authorities said Thursday that Ricardo Antonio Chaney, 32, is the suspect in the death of George Bundy Wasson, 79, whose body was found early Wednesday in the charred remains of his home near the University of Oregon. It marked the beginning of what authorities say was a 12-hour spree.
Wasson had been a professor in the school's Ethnic Studies Department, a former dean of students and a tribal elder with the Coquille tribe in North Bend, Ore., said Gordon Beetles, who is the Native American initiative director for the university.
Chaney was acquainted with family members of Wasson, whose home was deliberately set on fire, police said.
Public Information Director Melinda McLaughlin would not say what, if any evidence, tied Chaney to the 12:36 a.m. shooting and fire beyond his acquaintance with Wasson's family, but a police lieutenant told the Eugene Register-Guard that Chaney once had lived not far from Wasson.
Just 36 minutes after Wasson's body was found, authorities said, Chaney carjacked two men in Eugene, launching a flight south into California that ended about nine hours later when he shot and killed Del Fiorentino and was then killed in a shootout with a Fort Bragg police lieutenant.
The carjacking began when a masked man confronted two Eugene men at 1:12 a.m. and forced them at gunpoint into their car's trunk, Eugene police said.
The men, both in their 20s, escaped while the car was still parked by pulling the trunk escape latch. They quickly provided the information that launched a manhunt.
Police issued a be-on-the-lookout bulletin at 1:33 a.m. with a description of the black, 2006 BMW 330i that reached Mendocino County, but it was a third violent confrontation that mobilized local law enforcement agencies.
About 10:30 a.m., a man believed to be Chaney and driving a black car with darkly tinted windows turned off Highway 101 into a 1950s-era roadside attraction known as Confusion Hill, between Piercy and Leggett in northern Mendocino County. Soon, he was in a dispute with business manager John Mills, who ordered him to leave.
The man did so, but soon returned with a shotgun. During a confrontation in the gift shop, the man fired once at Mills, the round passing through a window in the door, then ricocheting off the metal casing of a soda dispenser, then going out through another window.
"Missed me by about 6 inches as it went out the back window," Mills said.
Chaney then ran to his car and fled, though Mills got one round off with his own handgun before calling 911.
Mills' call mobilized Mendocino County law enforcement officials, who then assessed the fugitive's potential routes.
Van Patten, the sheriff's captain, said he headed up Highway 101 toward Confusion Hill hoping to cross paths with the suspect. CHP officers meantime checked 101 to the north.
When Chaney was not spotted, deputies concluded he likely had left the inland route at Leggett and headed toward the coast on Highway 1. If so, he was headed directly toward two coastal deputies -- Del Fiorentino and Lt. Greg Stefani -- who were northbound from Fort Bragg, 43 miles south of Leggett.
Del Fiorentino was in the lead, some distance ahead of Stefani, when he radioed back that a black BMW had just sped past him, Van Patten said.
Stefani pulled to the shoulder and waited. The car passed him at 11:38 a.m., prompting him to turn and pursue the BMW, which hit 100 mph even without Stefani activating his lights and siren, Van Patten said.
In Fort Bragg, police set up a spike strip on Highway 1 just north of the city limits. Stefani, meanwhile, lost sight of the BMW on a blind curve about 3.5 miles north of Fort Bragg, Van Patten said.
When he and Del Fiorentino reached the waiting Fort Bragg police, they were told that Chaney had not come through, prompting the deputies and others to head back north and begin searching side roads.
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