The man suspected of fatally shooting a Yolo County sheriff's deputy is an ex-convict who has served years in state prison for assault with a semiautomatic rifle and for driving recklessly during a police pursuit.

Marco Antonio Topete, 35, was arrested at 8 a.m. Monday after an overnight manhunt involving hundreds of law enforcement officers. The Arbuckle man is suspected of gunning down Deputy Jose Antonio Diaz, 37, during a traffic stop near Dunnigan 11 hours earlier.

Topete's baby daughter, who was inside her father's car during the 100-mph chase and shootout, is safe and in foster care, according to Colusa County officials.
Officer 'Tony' Diaz

Diaz, who was shot in the shoulder, died at 10:51 p.m. Sunday at Woodland Medical Center. Despite his grave injury, Diaz "was able to point out the direction of where he last saw the suspect headed," according to the sheriff. Prieto described the fallen deputy as a kind, gentle man who "always had a smile on his face." Diaz, who goes by the nickname Tony, is divorced and has three children, ages 2, 4 and 16. "Many lives are going to be touched by this," he said of Diaz's death. "It touches your soul, it's so painful."
End of Watch: Sunday, June 15, 2008

Yolo County Sheriff Ed Prieto said Topete was "trapped like a rat" when officers located him in a wooded area near a golf course off Interstate 5.

"We had him surrounded," he said. "Someone picked up movement in the bushes and we called K-9 units in and arrested him without incident."

The arrest occurred within a mile from the scene of the shooting near County Road 99 and County Road 5, just outside the small farm town of Dunnigan.

Topete, a reputed gang banger, was sentenced to 12 years in state prison in 1998 for assault with a semiautomatic rife. He was released in November.
Prieto said that Topete allegedly used a high-powered rifle to shoot the deputy.

A 223 high-powered rifle was found around 11 a.m. near the northbound I-5 rest stop area near Dunnigan, said Michele Wallace, public information officer for the Yolo County Sheriff's Department.

The incident began around 7 p.m. Sunday when the Davis Police Department issued a bulletin to law enforcement stating that Topete was driving drunk with a child in the car, according to the sheriff.
At the time, Topete was apparently heading home to Arbuckle with his wife and infant daughter. The couple argued and the woman got out of the car on the side of Interstate 5, Prieto said.

Around 9:30 p.m., Deputy Diaz radioed dispatch that he located Topete's vehicle. Topete fled, initiating a high-speed pursuit on county roads that lasted about five minutes. Speeds reached up to 100 mph, Prieto said.

Video from the deputy's car shows him keeping excellent control of the patrol vehicle, he said. Diaz radioed dispatch that he had been shot. When two backup deputies arrived, they found Diaz kneeling behind his patrol car. The bullet penetrated Diaz's Kevlar vest, striking him in the shoulder area.

Prieto said he was unsure of the circumstances surrounding the shooting, and couldn't say whether the deputy was in or out of the patrol car when he was wounded. The patrol car appears to have been hit by several bullets.

Topete, meanwhile, took off on foot, abandoning his baby daughter in the car. Authorities had a perimeter set up within 15 minutes of the shooting.

More than 100 officers from a dozen agencies joined the search overnight, which continued through the early morning hours Monday and totally shut down Interstate 5 near the border of Yolo and Colusa counties for nearly three hours.

After noon Monday, officers were still combing the fields between the site of the shooting and the spot where they flushed out the hidden suspect. Somehow, Topete crossed the freeway, perhaps by running across I-5 on foot.

Topete's baby daughter was placed immediately in foster care, according to Beth Robey, director of the Colusa County Health and Human Services Department. She said her office is investigating family members, including background checks, and her hope is to be able to be able to return the baby, who is between three and four months old, to her mother's care tonight or Tuesday morning.

"Our first obligation is to place the child in a safe environment," Robey said. "It's always our hope to place the child with a family member."

State prison records show that Topete, who was born in 1972, has been in and out of state prison repeatedly over the last 15 years, according to records obtained from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. He also served time as a juvenile, but his record as a minor is not public.

As an adult, Topete first went to state prison in May 1993 for attempting to evade a peace officer while driving recklessly in Yolo County.

He was back in prison the next year for discharging a firearm in a grossly negligent manner in Sacramento County.

Topete's latest prison term began in October 1998 after being convicted of assault with a semiautomatic rifle in Yolo County and sentenced to 12 years. He was paroled in November 2007 and had been out of prison less than six months before the encounter with Deputy Diaz.



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