DAVIS, CA — Gunfire rang out in downtown Davis Thursday night. Chaos followed. Someone shot a city of Davis police officer near the University of California, Davis and no one knew who the shooter was or where he went.
Rookie police Officer Natalie Corona, 22, was lying gravely wounded on 5th Street where she had responded just moments before to a seemingly routine call, a car crash.
As she was rushed to nearby UC Davis Medical Center where she would later die, the message was clear: to law enforcement, “officer down, suspect at large;” to the community and those on campus, “stay inside.”
Hundreds of law enforcement personnel from neighboring jurisdictions rushed to the Davis Police Department’s aid. An all-out manhunt was soon on for the shooting suspect as officers blocked roadways and went door to door in central Davis, a town of about 65,000. The suspect was identified as 48-year-old Kevin Douglas Limbaugh, of Davis, according to the SF Chronicle.
Witnesses recalled seeing a man with a backpack ride up to the crash scene on a bicycle, Davis police Chief Darren Pytel told reporters in a news conference Friday evening. Witnesses told police the man emerged from the shadows of the sidewalk with a gun and fired a single shot at the young officer, causing her to fall to the ground.
He reloaded and fired at the officer again, multiple times, the chief said. He reloaded again, this time firing in a different direction. Bullet holes were found in a house across the street, in a bus that drove by, in a firefighter’s boot, in a backpack.
One of the witnesses who watched the horror unfold noticed something: the shooter left behind his backpack. The contents of that backpack, Pytel said, are what authorities used to piece together the suspect’s identity and where he might have gone after the shooting.
A tactical team was assembled and went to an address in the 500 block of E Street. The suspect at some point came out of his residence wielding a gun and wearing a bulletproof vest, Pytel said.
When he went back inside, a gunshot was reportedly heard. Pytel said it was later determined to be a self-inflicted, fatal gunshot wound to the suspect’s head.
Images from a robot sent inside the home — Pytel said they did not feel it was safe to send personnel inside — reportedly showed the suspected gunman immobile, suffering from a gunshot wound. He’d apparently pushed a couch up against the front door, delaying authorities’ entry into the home.
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Pytel said prior to Thursday’s tragic events, the suspect was known to the police force because he’d filed at least one report as a victim of a crime.
The chief said he was not immediately aware of the suspect and the slain officer having any prior contact.
Instead, he called the shooting “an ambush.”
“Nobody else was injured other than Officer Corona,” said Pytel, who’d announced Corona’s death just before midnight.
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Friday, the department of fewer than 60 sworn officers spent much of the day sharing memories of Corona. It was their way of trying to process the tragedy, the chief said.
Pytel called the loss of the young female officer “absolutely devastating to the department.”
“She had this personality that was energizing,” Pytel said. “She was so friendly and outgoing … she was just somebody that everybody in this building respected. I don’t think I ever worked with anyone else quite like her.”
The chief explained that Corona was the department’s first part-time hire under a City Council-approved program through which her college tuition was paid. The next step in the program was the police academy, which she enrolled in as soon as she was old enough.
She completed the academy in July and was sworn in Aug. 2, then spent the next few months in field training alongside other officers.
She’d only been out on her own for a couple of weeks, since December, and was the department’s “rising star.”
Now, they are planning her memorial service for this coming week.
Main photo: Flowers lay near the scene, Friday, Jan. 11, 2019, where Davis Police Officer Natalie Corona was shot and killed Thursday night in in Davis, Calif. Corona, 22, who had been on the job only a few weeks was killed by a suspect who opened fire as she was investigating a vehicle collision. The suspect was later found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot. (Photo credit: Rich Pedroncelli/Associated Press)