SAN BERNARDINO >> Sheriff’s officials on Saturday identified a Fontana man as the suspect in Friday’s rare but deadly deputy-involved shooting from a helicopter.
Home-invasion robbery suspect Nicholas Alan Johnson, 32, died after leading deputies south on the northbound side of the 215 Freeway in a chase that ended near Little League Drive where he died after a deputy in the sheriff’s helicopter shot him.
Landing a shot like that under those circumstances is one in a million, according to a former Marine sharpshooter.
“To hit a high-speed moving target from a moving platform high in the air with the rotor downdraft in front of you is probably one of the most difficult situations a sharpshooter could find themselves in,” retired Gunnery Sgt. Ron Keppler said in a phone interview Saturday. “To be that accurate in this scenario it takes calm nerves, a steady hand and some sort of higher faith. Either way, that shot should go into the record books.”
No other shots were fired at the fleeing suspect, deputies said.
It’s been 14 years since the last San Bernardino County sheriff’s deputy-involved shooting from the air.
It was the seventh such deputy-involved shooting, sheriff’s spokeswoman Jodi Miller said Saturday.
“The last was in Apple Valley in 2001,” she said.
No information was immediately available about such shootings in years past, but Miller noted that the sheriff’s helicopter crews consistently train for the possibility of having to shoot at a target from a moving helicopter.
“They train from the air every 90 days at a minimum,” she said. “All of our deputies/tactical flight officers qualify with the same weapons that they carry in the aircraft through and within department qualifications.”
Additionally, the unit has been training from the air since the mid-1980s, she said.
Friday’s deputy-involved shooting from the air had to be, said retired Placer County sheriff’s Sgt. Rocky Warren, a police use-of-force expert.
It appeared likely that the shooting saved the lives of innocent people on the freeway, he said.
As a wanted home-invasion robbery suspect, the driver was “a violent, fleeing felon,” Warren said. And when fleeing in an SUV weighing more than 3,000 pounds, “the car becomes a weapon.”
In addition to being highly unusual, “it’s a very technical shot,” Warren said. “They have to be tremendously skilled in order to do that.”
The deputy had to contend with motion, wind as well as the added difficulty of firing from an elevated position, he said.
On Friday, deputies tried to pull Johnson over shortly before 1 p.m. but wound up in a high-speed chase on Fontana and San Bernardino streets before he began going south on the northbound 215 Freeway at speeds exceeding 100 mph, authorities said.
During the chase, Johnson showed no regard for public safety, running “several stop signs and red lights, narrowly missing several pedestrians,” a sheriff’s news release said.
So a deputy on board the sheriff’s helicopter took aim at the speeding Tahoe and fired his weapon, striking it several times, deputies said.
The stakes were too high to let the wrong-way chase continue, Deputy Oliva Bozek said.
After the car was struck, the suspect jumped from the speeding SUV moments before it crashed head-on into another SUV filled with a family of three.
In the end, Johnson died, and the occupants of another SUV — a man, a 13-year-old boy and a woman, were hospitalized. The man and boy were treated and released. The woman remains hospitalized Saturday, authorities said.
It wasn’t clear Saturday if Johnson died from being shot, but officials said an autopsy would be done.