Shootout suspect has criminal record
Two injured California officers expected to live
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The suspect in a hotel shootout that left a California police officer dead and two wounded while they investigated a stolen vehicle ring has a violent criminal history, court records show. He did prison time for assault with a semi-automatic weapon and vehicle theft.
Thomas Daniel Littlecloud, 32, was in critical condition Thursday after he got into a gunfight with officers Wednesday after fleeing the hotel in a car, said Sacramento County Sheriff’s Sgt. Tony Turnbull.
Littlecloud fatally shot Deputy Robert French, 52, on Wednesday with an assault rifle after officers knocked on the door of Littlefield’s hotel room, Turnbull said.
Littlecloud, of Castro Valley, California, has a criminal history dating back to 2004, including a six-year sentence for assault with a semi-automatic weapon and prison time of more than a year for vehicle theft, court records said.
He was also sentenced in 2013 to three years for evading a police officer and possessing an illegal gun and twice violated parole in 2015.
Two California Highway Patrol officers who were shot and wounded were expected to survive.
They were identified Thursday as John Wilson and David Woodward by California state Sen. Jim Nielsen, a Republican who said he was given the information by the highway patrol.
Priscilla Prendez, 23, of Oakland, faces charges of vehicle theft and felony evasion in connection with Wednesday’s events, which began as part of a routine stolen vehicle investigation.
In another shooting of California police Wednesday night, two officers in Bakersfield were hospitalized in stable condition they responded to a call about a disturbance at a home and ended up in a shootout in which the suspect was killed.
The Sacramento shooting started with a routine investigation by a car-theft task force involving officers from multiple agencies. Investigators suspected a car-theft ring was being run out of a Ramada Inn in an unincorporated neighborhood of Sacramento.
Two women who got into a stolen vehicle were chased for 20 miles before being apprehended in Elk Grove, south of Sacramento. Arresting officers learned Prendez was on probation and had booked a room in the Ramada Inn.
No details have been disclosed about her relationship to Littlecloud, and the police have not named the second woman in her car.