PALM SPRINGS, Calif. -- A man suspected of shooting three Palm Springs police officers, two fatally, was apprehended early Sunday after a 12-hour standoff, authorities said.
John Felix, 26, of Palm Springs will be charged this week with two counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of the two officers -- one a young mother, the other a veteran months away from retirement. They were the first from the Palm Springs Police Department to die in the line of duty since 1962, The Desert Sun of Palm Springs reported.
"I am awake in a nightmare right now," said Palm Springs Police Chief Bryan Reyes.
SWAT officers had made several attempts with bullhorns to make contact with Felix during the standoff in his family's residence, authorities said at a Sunday morning news conference. But there was no response.
Remote-controlled robots were eventually used to pinpoint Felix's location, and police shot chemical agents into the house.
Chief Deputy Ray Wood of the Riverside County sheriff's office said that when Felix emerged from the back door, "he was wearing soft body armor and he had a number of high-capacity magazines on his person."
The Riverside County sheriff's office, which took over the case, said Sunday that Felix had been injured while exchanging gunfire with the officers, but that his injuries were not life-threatening and that he was being treated at a hospital.
The episode began Saturday afternoon, when Felix's father told a neighbor, Frances Serrano, that Felix was armed, "acting crazy" and wanted to shoot police, Serrano said.
"'My son is inside and we're scared; he's acting crazy,'" Serrano said the father, Santos Felix, told her. When it was suggested that they call the police, Santos Felix said, "Yeah, he already knows they are coming, and he is going to shoot them."
Serrano said she went back inside her house and that within minutes police cars arrived.
Three officers -- Jose Gilbert Vega, 63; Lesley Zerebny, 27; and a third officer -- responded to the call. A person at the house refused to open the front door and threatened to shoot them through it, Reyes said.
Within 10 minutes, shots had been fired, and all three officers had been hit.
"It was a simple family disturbance, and he elected to open fire," Reyes said.
Zerebny, 27, had been with the Police Department for about 18 months and had recently returned early from maternity leave after giving birth to a daughter, now 4 months old. She was married to a deputy with the Riverside County sheriff's office.
Vega, who was married with eight children, had been with the department for 35 years. Reyes said Vega was not scheduled to work Saturday, but he had picked up an overtime shift.
Reyes said the wounded officer, a man whose identity has not been released, was alert, was speaking with investigators and was expected to be released from a hospital on Sunday.
District Attorney Michael Hestrin said John Felix would be charged Tuesday with first-degree murder and several other felony counts. Prosecutors will decide within two weeks whether he could face the death penalty, he said.
"I consider the brutal murder of a police officer to be a very heinous crime, so I will leave it at that," Hestrin said.
It wasn't known Sunday whether Felix has an attorney.
Reyes indicated that police have had previous dealings with the suspect, but he declined to elaborate.
Court records show that John Felix is a gang member who was previously sentenced to two years in prison in a failed murder plot in 2009. Documents cited by The Desert Sun show he was charged with attempted murder but pleaded down to assault with a firearm and admitted his gang connection.
Documents also show that John Felix was the subject of a forceful arrest three years ago at the same house where Saturday's shootings occurred.
Scores of residents gathered to leave flowers, balloons and cards in front of police headquarters in Palm Springs, a city of 45,000 residents about 100 miles east of Los Angeles.
Vega had submitted his paperwork to retire at the end of the year after a long and decorated career, Reyes said.
"Here he is, 35 years in, still pushing a patrol car for our community to make it better -- on a day he wasn't even scheduled to work," the chief said.
Reyes said Zerebny "pressed forward every day to make it better for everybody else."
"My employees are broken," Reyes said. "If there's ever a time to pray for Palm Springs PD, it is now."
Information for this article was contributed by Robert Jablon, Christopher Weber, John Rogers, Olga R. Rodriguez and Adam Kealoha Causey of The Associated Press; by Ruben Vives, Brittny Mejia, Richard Winton and Matt Stevens of the Los Angeles Times; and by Karen Workman and Jonah Engel Bromwich of The New York Times.
A Section on 10/10/2016