Jul 20, 2007

Breaking News: Police kill robbery suspect in shootout

One innocent bystander is injured

By Mark Abramson/Daily News Staff Writer

San Mateo police are investigating an armed robbery that led to one suspect being gunned down and an innocent bystander being hospitalized with a gunshot wound to his torso.

The incident started at 10:49 a.m. today when two men robbed the Fiesta Latina Market at 1424 Cary Ave., police said.

At least one of the men was armed with a gun, and witnesses reported seeing one of the suspects jumping fences in the first block of Patricia Avenue. The other suspect reportedly fled in a white SUV.

Police spotted the vehicle and followed it to the Central County Mental Health facility at 3080 La Selva St., where the suspect exchanged gunfire with police. The suspect was killed, and police are not releasing his name.

The suspect managed to get inside the building somehow, where he shot Sean Moran, 35, of San Mateo, Moran's mother, Marilyn Metcalfe, of San Mateo said. Moran suffered a gunshot to his torso and was taken to Stanford Medical Center, and he is expected to survive, she said.

"I think he would have shot (Moran) more than once if the police had not stopped him," Metcalfe said. "It was a horrible thing, I've never been around violence."

Moran was at the center for an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, she said.
Police said they captured the second alleged robber at about 11:09 a.m. when a sergeant spotted him ducking into a yard in the 800 block of North Bayshore Road. That suspect is a juvenile male, and police would not release his age and name.

E-mail Mark Abramson at mabramson@dailynewsgroup.com.