BONSALL — Authorities have released the names of the two sheriff’s deputies who shot a man when he allegedly refused to drop a pellet pistol and a knife he was wielding during a confrontation near San Luis Rey River Park in Bonsall.
Deputies Jorge Chavez and Lisa Lee opened fire on 66-year-old Patrick Wendell Lowell of Escondido in the area of state Route 76 and Via Montellano in Bonsall about 11:30 a.m. on May 4, according to the San Diego Police Department, which investigates shootings by San Diego County Sheriff’s Department personnel under terms of a regional anti-conflict-of-interest agreement.
The gunfire erupted as the deputies were investigating “numerous” reports of a man brandishing a handgun in the unincorporated community west of Interstate 15 and south of Fallbrook, SDPD Lt. Steve Shebloski said.
Spotting Lowell in the area holding a pistol and a knife, Chavez and Lee called out to him and ordered him repeatedly to disarm himself. When he refused, they fired on him, wounding him in his lower body.
“This incapacitated the suspect, and he dropped the weapons he was holding,” Shebloski said.
Paramedics took Lowell to a hospital for treatment of apparently non- life-threatening wounds.
The pistol the suspect allegedly had been wielding turned out to be a Glock-replica BB pistol, according to police.
Chavez and Lee have been employed by the Sheriff’s Department for five and three years, respectively. Both are assigned as patrol deputies at the Vista Sheriff’s Station.
