On a number of occasions when I was a parole agent, I found parolees hiding under piles of dirty clothing when I came to their homes to question or arrest them. I suppose I was lucky that none of them were armed at the time.
FRESNO AMBUSH: THREE OFFICERS INJURED IN SHOOTING, SUSPECT KILLED
By Marc Benjamin and Carmen George
The Fresno Bee
November 5, 2013
Three law-enforcement officers were shot and injured Tuesday by a man who emerged from a pile of clothing in the garage of a southeast Fresno apartment and opened fire.
The officers -- a parole agent, a U.S. marshal and a Fresno County sheriff's detective -- were taken to Community Regional Medical Center with minor injuries.
The armed suspect was shot and killed in an exchange of gunfire.
The parole agent, identified as Nate Castro, was shot in the chest, but he escaped serious injury because he was wearing his bulletproof vest.
Fresno police Chief Jerry Dyer said the vest saved Castro's life.
The U.S. marshal, who was not identified, was struck in the side by a shot that passed through. The detective, identified as Robert McEwen, was struck in the face by shrapnel.
By Tuesday night, the injured officers were released from the hospital.
The officers were part of a multiagency law-enforcement task force that was trying to arrest Jerry Vue, 27, of Fresno. He was being sought for his part in a woman's kidnapping in 2012. His brother, Kou Vue, 22, was arrested last July in the case and is in Fresno County Jail awaiting trial.
Nine members of the task force converged on the apartment at 5226 E. Liberty Ave. about 1 p.m. Tuesday, surveying the area before attempting to enter the apartment, authorities said. About 2:30 p.m., officers went inside, Dyer said. Before entering, a woman and some children came outside and told law enforcement that Jerry Vue was not inside.
As several officers entered the garage, the armed suspect sprang out of the clothes pile and fired at officers before running outside and continuing to shoot from the driveway, where he was fatally shot by officers, Dyer said.
One other man was detained for questioning, he said. Fresno police are overseeing the investigation of the incident.
Fresno County Sheriff Margaret Mims said the name of the dead man was being withheld pending identification by the Coroner's Office.
Interest in Vue intensified after he was featured over the weekend on a Fresno County Sheriff's Office Crime Stoppers television program.
Vue was charged in July 2011 with four felony counts, including corporal injury to a spouse, criminal threats and possession of a deadly weapon. He went through a 53-week batterer's program, but then failed to show up for court in July 2012.
In June 2012, Fresno County sheriff's deputies identified Vue and his brother, Kou Vue as suspects in a kidnapping.
The woman was taken to Jerry Vue's house, west of Fresno. The woman told deputies she was held in a closet, pistol-whipped, beaten and sexually assaulted.
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