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Thursday, February 12, 2009
Police seek man seen at deadly Irvine shooting scene
Officials say man found dead in white Lexus may have worked nearby.
By SEAN EMERY
THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
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IRVINE ? Police today are looking for a suspect in the shooting death of a man found parked behind an Irvine restaurant.
An overnight search failed to turn up a man seen leaving the scene of the crime.
Police at about 4:40 p.m. Wednesday found the man shot to death inside a white Lexus parked behind a row of restaurants in an Albertsons shopping center at Jeffrey Road and Roosevelt, near the I-5 freeway. Irvine police Lt. John Hare said police are investigating the death as a homicide, although they have not ruled out a self-inflicted gunshot.
Police searched well into the night for a man in his mid-20s, about 5-feet, 6-inches tall, wearing a dark, hooded sweat shirt spotted leaving the scene of the shooting on foot.
Police have called off their large-scale search of the area, which brought in helicopters, bloodhounds and officers to scour the neighborhoods surrounding the shopping center, Hare said. Officers are still on the lookout for the man, Hare said. No weapon has been found.
Police have not released the name of the victim, saying they are still in the process of notifying his family. Hare said the victim may have worked in a nearby restaurant, although he would not specify which one.
The shooting comes as a shock in a community that for the past four years has been labeled the safest large city in the country, a designation based on annual FBI crime statistics.
Irvine police recently indicated that they are on track to become the safest city for a fifth year, with preliminary data showing a 17 percent drop in violent crime during the first half of 2008. Those drops mean the city's per capita crime rate last year is on track to be the lowest in its history.
There have been two high-profile incidents in the past six months, however.
In early September, a man was shot and killed after pointing a military assault weapon at SWAT officers following a police standoff at his Irvine apartment.
Later the same month, a former Los Angeles sheriff's deputy was charged with torturing and sexually assaulting his wife and another man during what authorities say was a nine-hour attack at an Irvine apartment complex. Robert McClain in early December pleaded not guilty to the charges, and is expected back in court in late March.