CHP officer honored for role in shootout
Heavily armed gunman felled with two shots
By Kristina Davis, Union-Tribune Staff Writer, October 14, 2006
It is a modern-day gunbattle destined to be retold by cops for years to come. A lone sergeant miraculously dodges 30 rounds from a fully automatic AK-47 and single-handedly takes down the gunman with two well-placed shots from his rifle. One year later, California Highway Patrol Sgt. Kirk Van Orsdel still has moments of disbelief when he recalls how he was able to walk away from the firefight of his life. “It was a whole lot of luck and someone watching over me,” is the only explanation he can give.
The shootout, which unfolded on a Riverside County freeway July 21, 2005, has thrust the soft-spoken sergeant into the national spotlight with recognitions for his heroism. On Sunday, he will be honored in Parade magazine's “Officer of the Year” issue as one of 10 honorable mentions for the prestigious award, given by the International Association of Chiefs of Police. He will fly to Boston on Tuesday for the award ceremony. Van Orsdel won the national “Trooper of the Year” award given by the association this year. “I was very surprised I was a finalist,” said Van Orsdel, 43, who now oversees administrative operations at the CHP station in Oceanside. “We don't get recognized very often for doing the right thing.”
The morning of July 21 started out quietly enough in the desert near Cabazon, where Van Orsdel had begun his shift as a field supervisor. At 7:43 a.m., a woman called 911 to report she was being chased and shot at by a man driving a gray Lincoln. Van Orsdel spotted the cars immediately as they exited the freeway, and the driver of the Lincoln sped away after seeing an officer behind him. The sergeant followed him going the wrong way on the freeway, then into an intersection, where the man abruptly stopped. The first shot rang out, just missing Van Orsdel's head. “I never saw the gun, but I heard the shot, saw the hole in the windshield and was sprayed with glass,” he recalled.
The chase continued, followed by more exchanges of gunfire. At that moment, the gunman glanced over at a gas station and spotted his former girlfriend, the woman he had been chasing on the freeway. He opened fire on her as she ran inside, and then turned his gun back on Van Orsdel in another spray of bullets. Van Orsdel picked up the chase again, following him to the entrance of the Morongo Indian Reservation, where the driver stopped near the guard shack. Van Orsdel knew he had only seven rounds in his handgun, but he had readied his .22-caliber rifle. Suddenly, the gunman peeked over the roof of his car, giving Van Orsdel his first glimpse of the weapon he was up against. “I recognized right away it was an AK-47 and got a pretty sick feeling,” Van Orsdel said. “There was 45 feet between us. He opened up on me and he was on full automatic. The first burst hit the windshield. He sprayed gunfire and the rounds barely missed me.
I started firing blindly toward his car, and he stopped.” At one point, the gunman raised his rifle toward the unarmed guard ducking nearby. Van Orsdel finally got the gunman in the open and hit him with two rounds. “He bent over, and I realized I was empty. I reloaded my rifle, and he came up again to fire, but he was either empty or had a malfunction,” Van Orsdel said. “At that point he throws the rifle down, does a spread eagle belly flop, and gives up.” The incident lasted only about four minutes, Van Orsdel said, but it seemed like forever. “For a split second, I thought he had me. I had a bad headache, blood running into my eye and down my face. I started checking myself and realized that I didn't get shot.” Van Orsdel had been peppered with glass shards and bullet fragments, but was otherwise uninjured. The gunman, later identified as Gustavo Sanchez, survived his wounds and was found guilty of all charges. He faces seven years to life in prison and is set to be sentenced Friday .
Looking back, Van Orsdel says 19 years of training and the right mindset helped keep him alive. “Afterward, everything sinks in, and I think, 'I almost got killed and orphaned my kids,' ” said the sergeant, who had lost his wife to cancer just three months earlier. “You just don't give up. You never give up.”
Kristina Davis: (760) 476-8233; kristina.davis@uniontrib.com Retrieved October 14, 2006 from http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/20061014-9999-2m14chp.html