After taking 3 hostages, man dies in shootout

By Mark Baylis/Staff Writer

A man who carjacked two vehicles and took three people hostage Friday afternoon was killed in a police shootout west of Goleta after a 110-mile, high-speed chase on Highway 101 through much of the Central Coast.

The fiasco started during a routine traffic stop in Templeton. By the time it was over, one suspect was arrested in Pismo Beach and another was dead after a string of carjackings ended when he reportedly tried to steal the pickup truck of an undercover narcotics officer, according to the Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Department.

Neither suspect's name was released Friday.

The incident shut down a 25-mile stretch of Highway 101 all afternoon, disconnecting North and South County and causing havoc on detour routes into early Friday evening.

The California Highway Patrol first encountered the two suspects when they tried to stop the men for speeding and driving a 2006 Toyota minivan too close to other cars, said Capt. Bill Vail of the CHP's San Luis Obispo office.

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The men didn't pull over, and a chase began.

After avoiding one spike strip, the van hit a second set of spikes on the highway in Pismo Beach and exited on Five Cities Drive.

The suspects ran from the car and fired two shots at pursuing CHP officers, Vail said. There were initial reports that a CHP officer was injured in the shootout, but officials could not confirm that report Friday night.

One suspect was caught in the Perko's Cafe parking lot after a 200-yard chase. Police identified him only as a 30-year-old Bay Area resident. He was being held on several charges, including conspiracy to murder a peace officer and being a felon in possession of a firearm.

The second suspect ran to a black 2005 Jeep Cherokee that was stopped at a nearby red light, Pismo Beach police said. He ordered the driver out at gunpoint and sped south on Highway 101 with the driver's wife, brother and sister-in-law inside.

For the next 85 miles, the suspect led CHP officers and sheriff's deputies on a chase that reached speeds well over 100, the CHP said. One sheriff's dispatch said the suspect reached 150 mph.

At one point, a telephone connection was made with the suspect, who stated that he

“didn't want to go back to prison,” according to a sheriff's dispatch.

The jeep ran out of gas in the Tajiguas area south of the Gaviota Pass. The suspect abandoned the vehicle and his hostages and ran onto the highway in search of another vehicle.

The abandoned hostages were uninjured. Two of the victims were identified as June and Robert Carnesecca of Campbell, Calif. The third hostage was identified only as a Pleasanton woman.

“He's just a young man, he was desperate,” June Carnesecca told the Associated Press. “He just doesn't want to go to jail, so he sped off.”

Wielding a handgun, the suspect then tried to carjack two cars, both of which sped away, said Sheriff's Sgt. Erik Raney. Eventually he hijacked a moving van, whose two occupants fled unharmed.

Within miles, the man crashed through the grass median and ended up on the parallel El Capitan Ranch Road on the northbound side of the freeway, where he was eventually killed in a shootout.

Officials are unclear what happened next, but they believe the suspect may have tried to carjack a third man who turned out to be an undercover narcotics officer with a U.S. Department of Justice task force.

A shootout ensued between the narcotics officer and the suspect, which ended with the suspect dead on the moving van's front seat. Police said they do not know if the narcotics officer killed the man or if he died from self-inflicted wounds.

The narcotics officer was driving north after serving unrelated search warrants in Santa Barbara when he came across the suspect, police said.

Orcutt resident Damon Locke, 46, witnessed the shootout while driving northbound. He watched as the suspect crossed the median and nearly hit oncoming traffic.

“The truck was off the ground,” Locke said. “It almost hit a school bus.”

Locke said the narcotics officer actually approached the suspect - not vice versa - and sideswiped the suspect's moving van with his own pickup truck. The fatal shootout ensued there.

The Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Department did not disclose the dead suspect's name, age or hometown. The coroner's office plans to perform an autopsy Monday as deputies continue to investigate the officer-involved shooting.

Friday night, officials from the various law enforcement agencies were still trying to piece together the incident. Officials couldn't say what prompted the suspect to respond so violently.

The fracas closed Highway 101 between Highway 1 and western Goleta until all lanes were reopened by 6:30 p.m.

Hundreds of drivers were stranded directly in front of the crime scene throughout the ordeal, unable to take a detour.

A mile's worth of drivers, seeking to head south, waited five hours before they could move. Together they sat in the roadway, talked on cell phones and stared at the helicopters flying over the crime scene.

Highway 154 was the only detour between the North County and South Coast. It remained bumper to bumper Friday evening as commuters tried to return home or get out of town for the weekend.

Mark Baylis can be reached at 739-2218 or mbaylis@santamariatimes.com. Staff Writers Malia Spencer and April Charlton also contributed to this report.

March 18, 2006