The suspect accused of ambushing two Los Angeles County police officers in Compton, CA earlier this month has been arrested and charged.
36-yr-old Deonte Lee Murray was arrested two weeks ago for an unrelated crime, but officers say that after this arrest it provoked others to come forward with more information about him. According to District Attorney Jackie Lacey, Murray is being held on two counts, each of willful, deliberate, and premeditated attempted murder of a peace officer and possession of a firearm by a felon.
Murray is also a convicted felon, though his record did not include anything that led to his recent charges.
“We knew that he was a violent offender, was accused of stealing a black Mercedes-Benz, and lived in the area. However, there was insufficient evidence to support an arrest, much less a criminal filing for the charge of attempted murder on a peace officer and to label him in the media as the person responsible,”
“Additionally, bringing the public focus on him at that point of the investigation may have influenced the pending witness interviews and further compromised the mission of solving the attempted murder of the deputies,” he said. “As the investigation progressed, we gathered sufficient evidence to substantiate not only the arrest but the filing of criminal charges in this case.”
On September 12, 2020 two Los Angeles County officers were approached while sitting in their cars and shot in an unprovoked ambush by a single suspect.
Surveillance video shows the officers struggling to escape the area after being shot.
LA County Sheriff Alex Villanueva told reporters that “despite being critically injured, the deputies valiantly cared for each other’s wounds and safety, communicated their location and plight to others, and tactically prepared for another attack.”
“We saw the worst of humanity — a cowardly act where a suspect ambushed and shot and attempted to kill two of our deputies … This cowardly ambush was followed by bystanders celebrating and cheering that the deputies had been shot, and that followed at the hospital — the sanctity, the quiet sanctity of the hospital — with protesters cheering and chanting for the deputies to die,” Villanueva said. “These acts and that day, I will not forget it, and it represents the worst in humanity and it shocked the whole nation. And that evening, I said we will find this man. And I can report today, we have found our suspect.”
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