Man gets 55-plus years in prison for shooting and wounding Santa Ana police officer

A man who ambushed and wounded a police detective during a 2016 shootout in a Santa Ana neighborhood was sentenced Monday to 55 years to life in prison.

A jury earlier this year found Carlos Michael Rodriguez, 34, guilty of attempted murder of a peace officer, among other charges, in connection to a shooting in the courtyard of an apartment complex on West McFadden Avenue that left both Rodriguez and the officer injured.

Deputy District Attorney Brett Brian on Monday afternoon told Orange County Superior Court Judge James E. Rogan that Rodriguez, not wanting to get arrested for selling drugs, ran from the detective, then attempted to ambush him.

“It’s a miracle he didn’t die that day,” Brian said of the officer.

According to court records, the detective and his partner, then members of a gang-suppression unit, were on patrol following an unrelated killing in the gang-plagued neighborhood a day earlier.

The officers were driving a marked police vehicle along an alley when they spotted a man sporting what they believed to be a prison-gang tattoo on his neck, according to the court records. There was an unoccpied car and fresh graffiti in the alley as well.

The man, later identified as Rodriguez, took off running, and the detective chased after him.

The foot chase ended at the complex on McFadden. The detective told DA investigators that as he looked into a courtyard, he spotted Rodriguez pointing a gun at him.

Rodriguez immediately opened fire, according to court records, as the detective ducked to his right.

Feeling pressure on the side of his head, but not immediately realizing he had been grazed by a bullet, the detective told DA investigators, the officer fired at Rodriguez, who dropped to the ground. Believing that Rodriguez was still trying to reach a weapon, the detective said he fired two or three more shots at Rodriguez.

Rodriguez was struck in his torso, while the detective suffered a graze wound to the head.

The prosecutor pointed out to the judge that Rodriguez had only been released from prison about six months earlier, having served eight years behind bars for pulling a gun on another Santa Ana officer during a routine traffic stop.

“Mr. Rodriguez has proven to be a very dangerous man,” Brian said.

Attorney Benjamin Russell, who represented Rodriguez, unsuscesfully asked the judge to dismiss Rodriguez’s previous “strike,” which would have allowed for a shorter sentence.

Russell cited a tumultuous childhood for Rodriguez, including unspecified mental-health problems, being struck by a bullet while playing outside as a child, and spending time in foster homes and residential treatment centers in several states before ending up on the streets when he returned as an adult to California.

“He exemplifies the person who never had a chance,” Russell told the judge.

More than a half-dozen Santa Ana police officers and officials attended the sentencing.