By Patric Hedlund

A gunman, fleeing after a fierce south Sacramento shootout that took the lives of two people, was captured yesterday on the Grapevine south of Gorman, near Quail Lake. California Highway Patrol officers from the Fort Tejon station in Lebec were asked to assist Sacramento County Sheriff’s deputies who had learned that Lonnie Orlando Mitchell, 24 was fleeing toward Los Angeles in a black Pontiac Grand Prix. Deputies set out in pursuit.

CHP officers initiated a felony stop on the Grapevine, south of Gorman. According to their dispatch report, Mitchell was taken into custody at 1:34 a.m. on Quail Lake Road. He was in the back seat of the vehicle.

On Tuesday, Dec. 14 two men had walked into a barber shop called Fly Cuts & Styles in a strip mall near Lincoln Boulevard in Sacramento, an area with frequent shootings this year, according to the Sacramento Bee newspaper.

The men began shooting at two people inside the shop. Gunfire was returned and the shooting spread into the parking lot where a mother was placing her two-year-old son into his car seat. Monique Nelson, 30 threw her body across the toddler to shield him from the bullets. The child was found safe, beneath her bloodied body, Sacramento news sources report.

Mitchell is said to have been one of the shooters in the parking lot. Another man, Marvion Barksdale, was killed. Five other people were injured, according to the Sacramento Bee.

Mitchell was taken to Los Angeles County Jail to be returned to Sacramento.

This is part of the December 24, 2010 online edition of The Mountain Enterprise.

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