San Diego officer dies; suspect left suicide note

SAN DIEGO (AP) — An officer shot in the face in an apparently unprovoked attack died Sunday, and investigators found a suicide note left by the suspect who fired the gun, San Diego's police chief said.

Jeremy Henwood, a four-year veteran of the department, died a day after being shot while sitting alone in his patrol car at a San Diego intersection, Chief William Lansdowne said at an afternoon news conference at police headquarters.

“I could tell you that this was a senseless killing ... this was an assassination,” Lansdowne said.

The armed suspect, Dejon Marquee White, 23, was shot to death by police as he tried to avoid arrest. Investigators said they have no motives for the shooting. White wrote a two-page suicide note but it didn't say how he was going to kill himself or why, police said.

White was a suspect in a shooting earlier Saturday at an In-N-Out restaurant 14 miles away in El Cajon.

The victim of that shooting is expected to survive.

The officer was at an intersection late Saturday afternoon when a vehicle believed to be carrying two people and linked to an earlier shooting came alongside, a police statement said.

“According to witnesses, the suspect vehicle pulled up on the left side of the officer's vehicle, pointed a gun out of the passenger window and fired at the officer,” police said.

Henwood, 36, was a captain in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserves. He had recently returned from year-long deployment in Afghanistan.

“As far as we know, it was totally unprovoked,” police Capt. Jim Collins told the San Diego Union-Tribune. “He was not attempting to stop the suspect vehicle. He had no idea that was the suspect vehicle.”

A half hour after the attack, officers tracked down the suspected vehicle, a black Audi with temporary plates, to an apartment and saw a suspect carrying a shotgun get in and start to drive away. Police said several squad cars converged on him to make the arrest.

“The suspect grabbed the shotgun and several officers fired their weapons at him,” the statement said.

Police believed a second suspect was holed up inside but later found the unit was empty.

The victim of the shooting at the In-N-Out restaurant in El Cajon was sitting in his vehicle in the parking lot when he was approached by a man carrying a shotgun. The assailant fired one round at the victim, Martin Hanna, striking him in the face, before fleeing in the Audi.

Police said Hanna is expected to survive.

Investigators have not been able to establish any relationship between Hanna and White.

Minutes later, an officer who had no knowledge of the restaurant shooting spotted the Audi speeding and gave chase but abandoned the pursuit as it reached speeds of 100 mph, the statement said.

Police Chief William Lansdowne was expected to provide more details at a news conference Sunday afternoon.

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