Neighbor: Bag of mail found near man shot by officer

Orange County Sheriff's Department crime scene investigators look through the evidence at the scene of an officer involved shooting the 1000 block of East Rexford Lane, Anaheim Hills.
Neighbor Victor Albano, 63, rushed outside and said an Anaheim officer who had just shot a man told him to call 911. Albano noticed a brown paper bag lying in the street. Later, investigators emptied the bag, and Albano said he saw it was full of mail.
Neighbor Victor Albano, 63, rushed outside and said an Anaheim officer who had just shot a man told him to call 911. Albano noticed a brown paper bag lying in the street. Later, investigators emptied the bag, and Albano said he saw it was full of mail.
An investigator looks over evidence lying in the cul-de-sac end of the 1000 block of East Rexford Lane in Anaheim Hills.
An Orange County Sheriff's Department crime scene investigator gets equipment out of her van at the scene of an officer-involved shooting the 1000 block of East Rexford Lane, Anaheim Hills.
Neighbor David DeRidder, 20, said he was awake early and heard a single gunshot around 5:30 a.m. Then he heard a man screaming. He said he heard the man say, "You shot me! You shot me!"
All the agencies involved in investigating a police officer-involved shooting gather in the middle of the the 1000 block of East Rexford Lane in Anaheim Hills.
The 1000 block of East Rexford Lane in Anaheim Hills was clogged with police cars following a police officer-involved shooting at the south end of the street.
An Orange County Sheriff's Department crime scene investigator photographs the evidence at the scene of an officer-involved shooting the 1000 block of East Rexford Lane, Anaheim Hills.
At 5:40 a.m., several Anaheim police officers responded to the 1000 block of East Rexford Lane in Anaheim Hills for a report of an officer-involved shooting. They found an injured person in the street and took the person to a hospital.
A neighbor makes a phone call from his front porch just a few homes down from the officer-involved shooting.
At 5:40 a.m., several Anaheim police officers responded to the 1000 block of East Rexford Lane in Anaheim Hills for an officer-involved shooting.
Before dawn, several Anaheim police officers responded to a police officer-involved shooting in the 1000 block of East Rexford Lane, Anaheim Hills.
Anaheim Police Department Chief John Welter, right, is briefed by Sgt. Tony Montanarella at the scene of a police officer-involved shooting in the 1000 block of East Rexford Lane, Anaheim Hills.
An Anaheim police officer runs a line of police tape across the street in the 1000 block of East Rexford Lane in Anaheim Hills after an officer-involved shooting.
The 1000 block of East Rexford Lane was blocked off by police tape as Anaheim police officers began to investigate an officer involved shooting that occurred at 5:40 a.m. in the Anaheim Hills neighborhood.
Anaheim police officers begin to coordinate their investigation of an officer-involved shooting at 5:40 a.m. in an Anaheim Hills neighborhood.

By Denisse Salazar | local@ocregister.com | Orange County Register and Doug Irving | Orange County Register

February 17, 2011 at 8:05 a.m.

ANAHEIM HILLS – An Anaheim police officer shot and injured a man early Thursday outside a home in a quiet Anaheim Hills neighborhood, police said.

About 5:40 a.m., police got several calls regarding a shooting and screaming in the 1000 block of South Rexford Lane, near Serrano Avenue, Anaheim police Sgt. Alan Roman said.

“Officers arrived and learned it was one of our officers involved in the shooting,” Roman said, adding that the officer, whose name has not been released, was not injured.

Officers found a man in his 20s suffering from a gunshot wound lying on the ground at the top of a cul-de-sac.

The man, whose name has not been released, was taken to a trauma center and his condition has stabilized, Roman said. A weapon was not recovered at the scene, he said.

Roman said the officer was on duty and was returning to his neighborhood on a quiet street lined with two-story homes. He said that’s when the officer came across the man, but it was unclear what led to the shooting.

“Unfortunately for the investigation, we don’t have a lot of witnesses,” Roman said.

Neighbors reported hearing a single gunshot that startled many of them from bed. Afterward, neighbor Cora Thompson, 53, said she heard a man screaming, “like agony, just like somebody was hurt really badly, just a lot of crying.”

A few houses down, Nalini Patel looked out her window and saw the uniformed officer, whom she recognized from the neighborhood, telling a man, “Don’t move, don’t move.” She said she heard the man say, “It hurts, oh, God, it hurts.”

Victor Albano, 63, rushed outside and said the officer told him to call 911. Albano noticed a brown paper bag lying in the street. Later, investigators emptied the bag, and Albano said he saw it was full of mail.

Neighbors also saw what looked like a cell phone that the man apparently was holding. They said he was face down in the street, and it was too dark for them to make out his features.

Albano’s son, Tony, said he heard the officer tell the man, “You were burglarizing our stuff.” Another neighbor, David DeRidder II, was playing video games when he heard what sounded like a firecracker, followed by someone screaming, “You shot me, you shot me!” He said he then heard a man say, “You were burglarizing.”

The Orange County District Attorney’s Office is investigating the incident, as is typical in officer-involved shootings that result in injury or death.

This is the first officer-involved shooting of the year in this city.

&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;Your browser does not support iframes.&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;

714-704-3709 or desalazar@ocregister.com