By Tim Stelloh - NBC News
A California police officer who allegedly opened fire on a suspect with an outstanding arrest warrant "tragically" killed an innocent Latino who was passing by, local authorities announced Sunday.
The shooting, which the state attorney's office is investigating, occurred Saturday night in Guadalupe, a small coastal city about three hours north of Los Angeles, the Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Office said in a statement.
Neither the identities of the suspect nor the agent, a member of the Guadalupe Police Department, were released.
The sheriff's office did detail that Juan Luis Olvera-Preciado, 59, was pronounced dead at the scene shortly after 10 p.m. (local West Coast time).
[A Latino worker is murdered in the robbery of a pharmacy in California]
The sheriff's office, which is collaborating in the investigation, did not provide details about the motives for the shooting, although it said it would provide more information once the investigations are underway.
The police statement indicates that the agents located a man on whom an arrest warrant for a serious crime weighed a block from the main street of Guadalupe.
One of the officers shot him, but hit Olvera-Preciado, who was sitting in his car.
The statement clarifies that "he was not involved" in the meeting and that he died "tragically".
The sheriff's office did not specify what charges the suspect faces.
The person turned himself in at the scene and no one else was injured.
The incident was referred to the attorney general's office under a new law that requires prosecutors to investigate the use of force against unarmed civilians that ends in death.
When Governor Gavin Newsom announced this new measure last year, he described it as one of the new state ordinances to reform law enforcement practices that activists called for in the wake of George Floyd's assassination in 2020.