Suspect In Yuba County Shootout Was Worker At Rastafarian Pot Farm
OREGON HOUSE (CBS/AP) - Authorities have identified the man accused of shooting two Yuba County sheriff's deputies before being shot and killed himself.
On Tuesday, a sheriff's deputy ran into a house in the Yuba County town of Oregon House to pull two wounded colleagues to safety after a shootout with the suspect, Mark Anthony Sanchez, 33, of Gilroy, near a marijuana farm belonging to a Rastafarian church, according to a statement from the Yuba County Sheriff's Department.
The two deputies were expected to survive after their fellow officer, a 22-year veteran, went alone into a house where the gunman had fled, Yuba County Sheriff Steve Durfor said. The wounded deputies were in fair condition at a hospital, the sheriff's department said Wednesday on Twitter.
The deputy did not see Sanchez or hear gunfire while rescuing the pair Tuesday. SWAT team members later found Sanchez dead, likely from shots fired by the deputies, Durfor said, though it's possible they were self-inflicted.
Sanchez had been working for about a month at the farm owned by Sugarleaf Rastafarian Church, which believes that marijuana is sacred and grows it about 55 miles north of Sacramento.
The sheriff said the wounded deputies, one of whom has been with the department for 14 years and the other for 10, were airlifted to a hospital and arrived "conscious, talkative and stable." They underwent surgery and were listed in fair condition on Thursday morning.
Sanchez was a felon who had served time in prison for multiple violent felonies including carjacking, assault with a deadly weapon, burglary, and possession of stolen property, according to authorities. At the time of his death, he also had two active arrest warrants of out Gilroy -- one for disturbing the peace, and the other for armed robbery.
Copyright 2017 The Associated Press.