Shooting suspect is dead after SWAT standoff at San Diego high school

SAN DIEGO —  A fugitive suspected of shooting at private investigators and police twice within the last month is dead following an overnight standoff with police in downtown San Diego.

The suspect, believed to be 36-year-old Christopher Templo Marquez, was shot and killed, police said. It draws to an end a standoff that started after the suspect opened fire on law enforcement officers Monday night during a pursuit that stretched from Point Loma to downtown San Diego, police said.

That pursuit came to an end about 8:45 p.m. when the vehicle being chased stopped on the football field of Balboa Stadium on the San Diego High School campus, according to San Diego police Officer John Buttle. Two occupants of the vehicle, one reportedly armed with a rifle, then ran onto the campus and took refuge in a dumpster.

A SWAT standoff with the pair was ongoing Tuesday morning.

The police action prompted the San Diego Unified School District to switch three schools from in-person to online instruction for the day. Classes will be online for San Diego High, Garfield High and East Village Middle College High students, said school district spokeswoman Maureen Magee.

“We think it might have been Marquez,” Buttle said Monday night. Marquez is accused of shooting and wounding a private investigator last month in Chula Vista and shooting at National City police officers last week.

Police radio traffic indicated that the involved law enforcement agencies also believed the man holed up in the dumpster was Marquez. He was reportedly accompanied in the trash bin by a woman.

Police negotiators were engaged in conversations with the two in hopes of getting them to come out safely, Lt. Matt Botkin told Fox 5 San Diego early Tuesday.

“The longer they can speak with them the more successful we can be... They are taking their time to listen and talk, and to let him know that when we say if you come out peacefully, we will be here to receive you. And that’s our goal,” Botkin told the station. “We are taking things very slow, very methodical.”

The pursuit reportedly began when personnel from the U.S. Marshals Service — or possibly members of its regional multi-agency fugitive task force — were attempting to take Marquez into custody in Point Loma, according to Buttle, who said he was unsure of what time that occurred, since San Diego police were not initially involved.

At least two people fled in a vehicle, and someone inside of it opened fire on the pursuing law enforcement vehicles near Nimitz Boulevard and Point Loma Boulevard in Ocean Beach, Buttle said. Someone from the vehicle again opened fire on law enforcement at least once more near state Route 163 and 10th Avenue in downtown.

Police radio traffic indicated there may have also been gunfire near 16th Street and Russ Boulevard, in an area between San Diego High School and San Diego City College. Buttle said there were unconfirmed reports that an officer, possibly from National City, fired back at the vehicle at some point.

No officers were reported to be injured by the gunfire. It was unclear if Marquez or anyone else inside the fleeing vehicle was struck by the return shots.

After the vehicle broke through a gate and drove onto the Balboa Stadium football field, at least two occupants ran onto the campus and hid inside a large trash bin. SWAT units from several different county agencies responded.

Radio traffic indicated that during the standoff, police officers were using a remote controlled robot to peer into the dumpster, while San Diego police and sheriff’s crews aboard several helicopters were also monitoring the trash bin for movement.

The helicopter crews, the personnel guiding the robot and emergency crisis negotiators reported the people hiding inside the dumpster were smoking, requesting water and becoming agitated by the robot’s presence.

The first shooting incident allegedly involving Marquez occurred March 15 at a home on East J Street near Arroyo Place in Chula Vista, according to police and the partner of the bounty hunter he shot and wounded. The two private investigators went searching for Marquez to detain him on a felony warrant when he allegedly shot one of them twice, setting off a police manhunt that stretched into the next morning.

A few weeks later, in the early morning of April 5, National City police officers spotted a stolen car in the drive-through of a Jack in the Box on Roosevelt Avenue near 7th Street, National City police said. Officers locked down the restaurant and its parking lot, but while attempting to make contact with the people inside the stolen vehicle, a passenger got out and ran.

Police said that man was Marquez, though they didn’t know it at the time. Police said he opened fire on pursuing officers as he ran onto the on-ramp from East 7th Street to northbound Interstate 5. Both officers returned fire, but the officers were not injured in the shootout, and police don’t believe Marquez was struck.

National City police said last week that Marquez had felony warrants for vehicle theft, hit and run, evading arrest and obstructing police. Online Sheriff’s Department records indicated authorities also issued a $2-million warrant last week on suspicion of attempted murder.

Authorities had described Marquez as being armed and dangerous.

Union-Tribune staff writers Karen Kucher and Teri Figueroa contributed to this report.