El Dorado County sheriff’s deputy Brian Ishmael, 37, was fatally shot in the Sierra Nevada foothills community of Somerset, California, early on 23 October 2019 while responding to a call about a theft at a marijuana garden.[1] An off-duty San Joaquin County sheriff’s deputy riding along with him was wounded; he returned fire and tried to save Ishmael before a highway patrol officer took him to hospital, where he was treated and released.[1]
Police radio traffic reported Ishmael answering a 12:28 a.m. report of people stealing plants from a resident’s marijuana grow, and radioing back about half an hour later: “I believe we have one shooter. Lost contact with my ride-along.”[1] Two men were detained at the scene, one of them shot and taken to hospital.[1] Ishmael, a four-year veteran of the sheriff’s office, was survived by his wife and three daughters.[1]
Authorities later said the landowner had rented the ground for the garden and feared the men hired by a grower would take the plants without paying him.[2] Three men were charged over the shooting, and in April 2022 field worker Juan Carlos Vasquez-Orozco was convicted of second-degree murder for killing Ishmael and of assaulting three other deputies.[2]
