VALLEJO — “We saw him come up to the glass, he pointed the rifle at us and it jammed,” a shaken Vallejo police officer told a dispatcher Sunday night moments after a gunman wearing body armor attempted to fire at a pair of cops taking a coffee break.
Police radio traffic obtained by this newspaper illustrate the chaotic minutes after police say Adam Powell, 41, aimed his battered assault-style weapon at two officers sitting in a Starbucks shop on a frontage road alongside Interstate 80 and “attempted to assassinate” them, Vallejo Police Chief Andrew Bidou told reporters Monday.
Powell, of Suisun City, was in critical condition after being shot by the officers during a brief foot chase.The officers were not injured.
The first radio call blasted out to dispatchers moments after the Starbucks encounter.
“A man with a rifle just tried to ambush us at Starbucks!” one officer called in to dispatch, as it sounds like he is running in pursuit.
As he’s giving his location to the dispatcher, he yells: “He’s shooting!”
After a brief pause, another officer addresses the dispatcher and reports: “Shots fired. Both officers are OK.” He then calls for an ambulance for the injured man who remained at gunpoint because police said they could not see his hands as he had fallen into a ditch where their views were diminished.
As reinforcements began arriving at the scene, the officers had concerns there may have been other people working with the gunman.
“Don’t know if he was working in tandem with anybody … oh (expletive)!” one officer, out of breath, said over the radio.
One officer is heard explaining how they spotted Powell walking up to the coffee shop window and pointing his rifle at them.
