Seal Beach officer fires at suspect after being ‘intentionally struck’ by SUV, police say
A Seal Beach police officer shot at a suspected drunk driver who hit him with his large SUV, which turned out to have the Long Beach man’s 4-year-old daughter and his 12-year-old brother inside, the department said Sunday, June 7.
Neither child was injured.
No one was struck by the officer’s round, which went through the windshield of the suspect’s Dodge Durango.
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The incident on Saturday just after 6:30 p.m. included another officer’s SUV that was struck by the suspect’s Durango as it fled the scene of the shooting, then a collision with another car. There was a foot pursuit that ended with police wresting the man’s daughter from his grip before shooting him with a Taser dart, Sgt. Nick Nicholas said.
The suspect had left the 12-year-old boy in the Durango when he fled, Nicholas said in a release.
Oscar Eduardo Mercado, 23, of Long Beach, was booked into the Orange County Jail on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon on a police officer, felony hit and run, felony child endangerment for both children, and resisting or delaying a peace officer with violence, the department said.
“Once the officers discovered there were children involved in this incident, they immediately put the safety and well-being of the children first,” said Chief of Police Philip L. Gonshak. He said the children “are safe at home with their family.”
The officer who police said was struck by Mercado’s vehicle was taken to a hospital. His injuries were described as non life-threatening. The officer who was in the car that was struck on the driver’s side by Mercado’s vehicle also was taken to a hospital for evaluation.
Police were at the scene of an unrelated four-vehicle collision Saturday evening in the area of Pacific Coast Highway and Seal Beach Boulevard when they got a report of a possible drunk driver heading northbound on PCH, near the boulevard and the scene of the collision, Nicholas said.
An officer on foot investigating the collision “was intentionally struck by the reported drunk driver’s vehicle,” the department said. The officer fired his gun at the driver through the front windshield; no one was hit.
Mercado drove quickly northbound on PCH, collided with the driver’s side of a Seal Beach police SUV, with the officer inside, then struck a car not involved in the incident, and came to a stop. He then fled on foot with his 4-year-old daughter in hand, police said.
Officers found Mercado and “were able to remove the child from his grip” before he was hit by an officer’s Taser dart, and arrested. The 12-year-old boy was later found abandoned in Mercado’s vehicle, police said.
Occupants of the vehicle Mercado struck had only minor injuries, Nicholas said.