Santa Ana Police say a fleeing Ignacio Leon Jr. reached for the waistband of his pants before officers fired two shots into his chest early Sunday.
Curious, then, that the 27-year-old, who was later listed in serious but stable condition at a hospital, had no weapon on him.
]
Cops had been called around midnight to the 500 block of East Washington Avenue about a man and woman having an unknown problem, according to Santa Ana Police. When officers arrived, they saw a man jump over a wall and run into the backyard of a home.
That's where Leon was shot.
Officers, none of whom were harmed, conducted a search of the backyard after the shooting but still found no gun.
Santa Ana Police say Leon could have passed the weapon to one of two people who had been in the backyard but later fled. Their whereabouts are unknown, police add.
Follow OC Weekly on Twitter @ocweekly or on Facebook!
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.