The Ceres, Calif. Ambush Cop Killing, Shootout, Minute-By-Minute

[TheeBadOne]

Less than two years ago, Andres Raya graduated from Ceres High School, where one friend remembered him as "the class clown." Less than four months ago, he was in Iraq with the Marine Corps. Another friend said Raya had been having nightmares about Iraq. Saturday, he went AWOL from Camp Pendleton, and by Sunday he was back in Modesto — shooting at police, killing one officer, wounding another, and ending up shot dead in an alley.

September — Lance Cpl. Raya, 19, returns from Iraq. His base is Camp Pendleton, in Southern California.

Dec. 16 — Raya comes home to Modesto for holiday leave.

Jan. 2 — His family puts him on a plane back to Camp Pendleton.

Saturday — Raya tells his barracks mates that he is going to get something to eat. Instead he goes AWOL, or absent without leave, and makes his way back to Modesto.

Sunday, around 8 p.m. — Using an assault rifle, Raya fires a shot into the pavement in the parking lot outside George's Liquors, 2125 Caswell Ave. He goes inside and tells the clerk, "Somebody just fired at me, call the police." Police said they received the call at 8:05 p.m. and arrived at the liquor store at 8:07. A surveillance video shows police arriving about 8:16, which means the camera's timer may have been as much as nine minutes fast.

8:15:37 — Surveillance video shows Raya pacing outside the liquor store door, at a corner of the building.

8:15:47 — The first Ceres police unit pulls up, behind an opposite corner of the building. Two officers emerge: Sam Ryno and an unidentified trainee.

8:15:49 — The officers walk to the building.

8:16:14 — A second police car, with one officer inside, pulls up.

8:16:19 — Ryno and the trainee peer around the corner.

8:16:20-8:16:23 — Raya sees them and steps back, reaches under his poncho and levels his rifle.

8:16:24 — Raya fires, and Ryno goes down. Raya keeps shooting as he advances on the corner. A third officer, who arrived in the second car, returns fire as Ryno crawls back to his car.

8:16:33-8:16:41 — Raya runs back to the other corner.

8:17:20 — He keeps the rifle out and throws part of the poncho over his shoulder.

8:17:34 — He notices something to his left, apparently Sgt. Howard Stevenson driving up. Raya crouches behind a sedan in the parking lot.

8:17:37 — He fires through one of the car's side windows and hits Stevenson outside his car. Raya continues firing, and Stevenson returns fire.

8:17:42 — Raya runs toward the downed officer. Police say he shot him twice in the back of the head.

8:18 — Officers from around the region respond to the "officer down" call, and cordon off the neighborhood as they search for the gunman.

About 10 p.m. — Police evacuate residents from several homes around a house where officers believe Raya may be holed up. Police shoot out streetlights to obscure the suspect's vision.

11:08 — Four officers see Raya climb over a fence, entering an alley between Glenwood and Myrtlewood drives. He fires on them, and they return fire, striking him. He drops his rifle, but remains standing. He reaches under his poncho and officers fire again, killing him.


***WARNING*** this is a link to a video of a human being shooting another human being (http://www.modbee.com/images/video/video1.wmv)

2nd video (http://www.modbee.com/images/video/video2.wmv)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In real life, things happen in the blink of an eye. The damage is done in under 1 minute. :eek:

[TheeBadOne]

Breaking News: Police find materials glorifying gang involvement in Raya's bedroom

Andres Raya was listening to gangster rap music and reading a book glorifying gang and drug involvement shortly before the 19-year-old Marine gunned down two Ceres police veterans Sunday night, investigators said this morning.
Before leaving Camp Pendleton last weekend, Raya told fellow Marines he wanted to buy an SKS assault rifle, Stanislaus County sheriff’s Lt. Bill Heyne said. When Raya’s comrades pointed out that such a rifle is illegal, Raya replied that this weapon could penetrate a police vest, Heyne said.

Toxicology reports revealed Raya had “a significant amount” of cocaine in his bloodstream when he shot two police officers outside a Ceres liquor store, Heyne said.

Because of these and other findings, investigators believe “gang ties that were very deep and very strong” influenced Raya’s plot to ambush police, according to Ceres Police Chief Art de Werk.

Raya, a Marine who worked as a Humvee driver, did not engage in combat during his seven-month stint in Iraq, according to Heyne, the lead investigator.

This undermines an original theory that post-traumatic stress from combat triggered Raya’s shooting rampage, Heyne said. But Raya did see a fellow Marine injured when a road bomb exploded under a vehicle in his convoy, Heyne said.

The book investigators discovered in Raya’s bedroom titled “Midst of My Confusion” is written by Sir Dyno, a notorious Nuestra Familia gang member now under federal indictment for racketeering, Heyne said. Throughout the book, law enforcement officers are referred to as pigs, he said.

Meanwhile, Raya’s friends and family insist that Raya, a Ceres High School graduate, was not a gang member, though he may have hung out with gang members from his neighborhood.

Everardo Padilla Jr., a 30-year-old warehouse worker who says he grew up with Raya said:

“It doesn’t matter what people read, or if they listen to gangster rap. Nobody really knows what went on inside Andy’s mind. But the war had a big influence on whatever he did after he came back.”

http://modbee.com/local/story/9768064p-10632259c.html

[TheeBadOne]

http://www.foxnews.com/images/150822/1_21_011405_raya_350.jpg

Marine Killed in Gunfight Taped Insult to Bush

CERES, Calif. — Police said Friday that a young Marine who was killed by police after he shot and killed an officer and wounded another was also a gang member who had recorded a videotaped insult to President Bush before he died.

Andres Raya, 19, was killed Sunday after he initiated a second gunfight with police as they pursued him for the earlier shooting, authorities said.

"By the statements the suspect made at the scene, it was clear he wanted to die and take as many cops down as he could in the process," Lt. Bill Heyne, lead investigator for the Stanislaus County Sheriff's Department, told the San Francisco Chronicle. "This officer was executed."

Ceres Police Sgt. Howard Stevenson, 39, died from multiple gun shots Sunday evening in a gunfight outside a convenience store. The second officer, Sam Ryno, 50, was shot several times and was in stable condition Friday at a hospital.

Raya was later shot down in an alley after a second confrontation with officers who had converged on the scene. A toxicology report found that he had a significant amount of cocaine in his bloodstream, police said.

Authorities said Raya was a gang member; Stanslaus County Sheriff's Department spokesman Jason Woodman said Raya had minor offenses as a juvenile, but no record as an adult.

Authorities also discovered a video camera and tape seized on Dec. 28 after a burglary at Ceres High School. On the tape, authorities said Raya can be seen smoking what appears to be marijuana, bragging about graffiti tagging he'd done and "throwing" gang signs. The videotape also shows a cut-up American flag laid on a gymnasium floor to spell out expletives directed at President Bush.

Raya joined the Marines after high school graduation and had served one tour in Iraq, according to officials at Camp Pendleton, where he was based. He was supposed to have reported for duty back at Pendleton on Sunday after a holiday leave. Marine Corps officials said his unit was not scheduled for an immediate return to Iraq.

Raya's family and friends said something seemed to have happened to him when he was in Iraq.

Though he spoke little about it during the holidays, Raya eventually told his parents, "'I just don't want to go back,"' his mother, Julia, told KPIX-TV. She said they hugged him and tried to give him the best Christmas they could.

One Marine who met Raya in Iraq, Lance Cpl. Sarah Carroll, told the Modesto Bee that at one point Raya said his morning supply convoy had gone over a roadside bomb.

"(Raya) said the convoy had one fatality and said how upset he was that it was the other guy and not him," Carroll said. "It seemed like an odd comment, because I didn't get the impression that he knew the guy or had been close to the bomb."

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,144472,00.html

[TheeBadOne]

The Marine who fatally shot a Ceres police officer and wounded another last week was a Norteño gang member who was high on cocaine at the time and carrying a gangsta rap CD about killing, police said.

Investigators now are discounting the theory that Lance Cpl. Andres Raya, 19, may have been suffering from post-traumatic stress and instigated a "suicide by cop" -- provoking officers to shoot him -- because he did not want to return to Iraq.

"He had a predisposition to gangs and violence before he went into the military," Stanislaus County Sheriff's spokesman Deputy Jason Woodman said Saturday. "During our investigation, we found he wasn't due to go back to Iraq, never faced combat situations and never even fired his gun."

Raya had reportedly bragged to fellow Marines that he had bought the SKS assault rifle because its bullets could pierce police body armor, and that one of his "boys" was holding it for him, police said.

Raya's family and friends -- who deny his gang involvement -- said he had been changed by the seven months he spent in Iraq, returning in September to Camp Pendleton in San Diego. He became withdrawn and unable to hold a conversation, and told them gruesome stories of house-to-house combat and watching Marines commit suicide. He questioned the war and said he did not want to go back.

But Woodman said the sheriff's department's investigation, in conjunction with the military and other agencies, found that Raya's motor transport unit had not seen combat, though Raya was in a convoy in which a Marine in another vehicle was injured in an explosion. Raya did not seek counseling when he returned home, and had recently been transferred to a unit scheduled to be deployed to Okinawa.

The investigation also uncovered ties to the Norteño gang, Woodman said, including a videotape and a safe in Raya's room containing a book by a member of the prison gang Nuestra Familia and numerous pictures of Raya wearing the gang's signature color red and making gang signs with his hands.

The safe also contained a "shopping list" for items including black clothing, body armor, assault rifles and ammunition.

"Based on the shopping list and the statements he made, it certainly seems like he had the intention and the desire to injure or kill police officers," Woodman said.

The video is of a Dec. 28 break-in of Ceres High School in which vandals including Raya smashed computers and other equipment, ripped up an American flag and spelled out "F -- Bush," Woodman said. The camera had been left behind at the school, but it wasn't until after the shooting that investigators got a tip to view the tape.

It also shows Raya and friends smoking marijuana, making gang signs and showing off gang graffiti. Raya refers to his gang involvement starting when he was a freshman, and pictures in the safe from 2000 show him using gang signs, Woodman said.

"It's very evident his gang affiliation started long before he joined the military," he said.

While Raya had a minor criminal record as a juvenile, police had not identified him as a gang member.

Raya's family and friends denied that he was a gang member but said he may have known people who were.

"They have to say something bad. They can't say something good because he killed one of their partners," Raya's uncle, Nicholas Cortez of Modesto, said of the police. "I'm not saying he was a saint, but he did go to the armed forces and got some medals for it."

"The military trained him to kill. Let's say he didn't see combat, but he was there," Cortez said. He said "stress from the service" is the only explanation for Raya's actions.

An autopsy showed Raya had a "significant amount" of cocaine in his system, Woodman said. In the pocket of Raya's poncho, police also found the CD "Season of Da Siccness," containing numerous references to death including the songs "Dead Man" and "Welcome to Your Own Death."

Woodman said investigators may never know what motivated Raya to open fire on police, but he said they consider suicide by cop and post-traumatic stress "less and less likely."

Denver Mills, director of the Concord VA Vet Center, said post-traumatic stress "typically doesn't result in lethal behavior like this." But he said it's impossible to say what affect the war had on Raya, even if he wasn't in combat.

"The difficulty," said Woodman, "is you have a guy who killed a cop, and the only one who seemed to know why was him."

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/01/16/BAG8GARA4M1.DTL