Prosecutors on Friday charged a man suspected of fatally shooting a Sacramento police officer who was responding to a domestic violence call, saying he used an illegal assault rifle to kill her.
The suspect, Adel Sambrano Ramos, 45, was charged with felony murder in the fatal shooting of Officer Tara O'Sullivan, 26, on Wednesday afternoon, Rod Norgaard, Sacramento County district attorney, said in the criminal complaint. He will be arraigned on Monday in Sacramento County Superior Court.
O'Sullivan was "a peace officer who was intentionally killed while engaged in the performance of her duties," Norgaard said.
The charge includes special circumstances that could subject Ramos to the death penalty.
Ramos was also charged with felony attempted murder of another Sacramento police officer, Daniel Chipp, and with two additional felonies for unlawfully possessing assault weapons — two semi-automatic AR-15-style rifles, Norgaard said.
Public defender Norm Dawson said he met briefly with Ramos but can't comment until he gets more details in the case, The Associated Press reported.
When O'Sullivan was shot just before 6 p.m. Wednesday, she had been helping a woman collect her belongings to leave a home, said Sgt. Vance Chandler. The other woman was not hurt, and the relationship between that woman and the gunman was not known.
O'Sullivan was wounded while she was in a backyard, and officers could not reach her for about 45 minutes after she was shot because the gunman kept firing, Chandler said.
"Our officers maintained cover in safe positions until we were able to get an armored vehicle in the area," he said.
O'Sullivan later died at UC Davis Medical Center hours after the gunman shot her — the first killing of an on-duty Sacramento police officer in 20 years. Ramos was taken into custody at about 2 a.m. Thursday after an eight-hour standoff in which he fired a rifle on and off.