LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – A gunman fired several shots at a police station in central California early on Wednesday, wounding a sheriff’s deputy, law enforcement officials said, and a body found hours later dead from a gunshot wound appeared to be related to the incident.
The sheriff’s deputy struck by gunfire at the Paso Robles, California, Police Department headquarters at about 3:15 a.m. PDT was airlifted to a local hospital, where he was in serious but stable condition, according to local media.
About four hours later, the body of an adult male was discovered near an Amtrak train station in Paso Robles, dead from a single gunshot wound to the head “fired in close proximity,” Tony Cipolla of the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement.
The cause of death has been determined to be homicide, Cipolla said.
“Investigators believe the homicide is related to the shooting incident this morning that is being investigated by the Sheriff’s Office,” Cipolla said in the statement.
Police have not said what they believe prompted the shooting at the Paso Robles Police Department.
Paso Robles is a community of about 32,000 people on the picturesque central California coast roughly midway between Los Angeles and San Francisco and is best known for its wineries.
(Reporting by Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles; editing by Bill Tarrant and Jonathan Oatis)
