UPDATE, FEB. 16, 4:13 P.M.: The man killed in a deputy-involved shooting in Yorba Linda on Monday has been identified as 39-year-old Brandon Lee Witt. A statement from sheriff’s Lt. Mark Stichter, the department spokesman, states Witt and a deputy got into a physical struggle before the shooting. “A female who was detained at the scene was interviewed,” Stichter says. “She was not arrested and was released pending further investigation.” He added that investigators are still trying to find a male and female who left the scene prior to the shooting.
ORIGINAL POST, FEB. 15, 7:26 P.M.: A 30-year-old man was shot to death in an Orange County sheriff’s deputy-involved shooting in the parking lot of a Yorba Linda motel Monday.
Deputies were in the lot of Extended Stay America, 22711 Oakcrest Circle, investigating a suspicious vehicle, according to sheriff’s Lt. Mark Stichter, the department spokesman.
A man who got out of a vehicle was shot around 1 p.m., Stichter said.
The unidentified man was pronounced dead at Orange County Global Medical Center in Santa Ana at 1:40 p.m., according to the coroner.
The sheriff’s department is not yet saying if the man was armed or using a vehicle as a weapon, Stichter said.
The Orange County District Attorney is investigating the shooting, as is protocol.
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.