Vallejo police shoot, wound burglary suspect

VALLEJO – A Vallejo police officer shot and wounded a burglary suspect at a gas station in central Vallejo early Tuesday morning, according to police.

Vallejo police said that officers had responded to a burglary in progress at the Grand gas station at 1401 Springs Road at about 4 a.m., interim police chief Jason Ta said in a brief statement on Tuesday.

Ta said that as officers arrived several people ran out of the gas station. Officers chased them, and one of the people got into a car and drove toward the officer. He hit the officer with the car, the officer landed on the car’s hood and fired at the driver, according to Ta.

The driver crashed into a building across the street. The driver was taken arrested and both the driver and the officer were taken to a hospital. Ta said the suspect’s injuries were not life-threatening and he would be booked into jail after he was released from the hospital.

The Solano County Major Crimes Task force, headed by the Solano County District Attorney’s Office, would investigate the shooting, according to police.

According to scanner traffic at the time of the incident, police responded to a report of a burglary at the gas station after a caller said that they saw four or five people in the gas station on live video.

Three minutes later an officer called for medical assistance at the gas station and said one person was in custody.

At around the same time, Vallejo police started a pursuit of a gray truck taking off from westbound Spring Road. Police pursued it west on Interstate Highway 80 at speeds of 100 mph across the Carquinez Bridge and into the Hercules area.

The driver got off the highway and fled to Refugio Valley Road, where he went offroad into a field and then ran from the truck and hid from officers. Officers searched for him in the area but it is unclear from the scanner traffic whether they found him.

A video that a bystander provided to the Vallejo Sun showed the gas station still taped off and numerous detectives in the area as of about 5:30 a.m.

The shooting is the first involving the Vallejo Police Department since Detective Jarrett Tonn shot and killed Sean Monterrosa in June 2020.
Prior to that, the Vallejo Police Department was one of the most deadly law enforcement agencies in the state, with a higher proportion of police shootings than other agencies in Northern California.