Background: The scene of the shootout at a park in Roseville, California, in April 2023 (KCRA/YouTube). Inset: Eric Abril (Placer County District Attorney”s Office).
A man in California has learned his fate for launching a shootout against cops when they tried to arrest him and then killing a man and using his wife “as a shield” against responding officers.
Eric Abril, 38, has been sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, the Placer County District Attorney’s Office announced this week. The sentencing came after he pleaded guilty earlier this month to the first-degree murder of 72-year-old James MacEgan, as well as for the attempted murder of a peace officer and kidnapping.
On April 6, 2023, at about 12:30 p.m., California Highway Patrol officers tried to serve a search warrant on Abril and his vehicle at Mahany Park in Roseville, the prosecutorial agency said. The warrant was tied to a freeway shooting in Sacramento County, regional CBS affiliate KOVR reported.
However, as officers approached Abril, he “ran and fired multiple rounds” at them, the Roseville Police Department stated in a video explaining what transpired that fateful day.
Investigators determined that Abril fired roughly 20 rounds at officers in the area near the baseball complex of the park. Police said he was wearing a bullet-resistant jacket at the time.
Abril “shot one officer in the chest, but the bullet was stopped by the officer’s ballistic vest,” the Placer County District Attorney’s Office said. As the suspect continued to flee and ran into a field, he encountered MacEgan and the man’s wife “hiding.”
The now-sentenced man “shot and killed the husband, then took the wife hostage,” Roseville police said. The woman recalled running “to take cover” near a creek before “hearing splashing from behind them, followed by a gunshot that was so close that she could smell gunpowder and her right ear began to ring.”
Abril “then grabbed her and forced her into the creek, using her as a shield,” the police department went on.
As officers deployed a drone to locate the suspect, Abril used the woman’s phone “to relay demands to the police,” according to the Roseville authorities. He reportedly said that “he would kill officers and that he had shot and killed the female victim’s husband.”
At one point, Abril “shot the female hostage in the back, seriously wounding her,” the DA’s office said. Officers then surrounded him and used two armored vehicles to take him into custody.
The woman was treated on the scene and brought to a nearby hospital. The officer who Abril shot was also treated at a nearby hospital, and Abril himself had two “non-life-threatening” gunshot wounds that were treated.
The wife spoke at Abril’s sentencing, describing the moment she witnessed her husband get shot.
“I saw the light go out,” she said, according to local NBC affiliate KCRA.
She described incident as something “like a shootout in the Wild West,” KCRA also reported.
“I had no time to help him or to even say goodbye to him because Mr. Abril dragged me by my feet into the creek and held me by my hair,” she said. “With his other hand, he pushed a gun into the back of my head. He dragged me around, so I would be on top of him as a shield.”
“I can’t give you true justice,” the presiding judge told MacEgan’s family. “True justice would take you back to an hour or two before this incident happened and have you in a different place. I can’t do that. So, we rely on the courts to give the next best opportunity to find justice for what has happened. I am sorry for what has happened to you and your loved ones.”
Placer County District Attorney Morgan Gire added: “This case reflects the definition of an extreme and callous disregard for human life, leaving one victim dead, another permanently injured, and family and a community forever impacted.”
“The defendant’s actions not only took a life but shattered a family and disrupted a place meant for safety and recreation,” he added. “Life without the possibility of parole is the only just conclusion for this case.”
