The Perpetrator
The assailant was identified as Oakland resident Lovelle Mixon, age 26, who worked sporadically as a plumber and custodian. Mixon wielded two different weapons—a 9mm semiautomatic handgun and an SKS rifle—during his deadly assaults on the Oakland police officers.
Mixon had an extensive criminal history. Beginning at age 13, he was arrested multiple times for battery, and by age 20 was serving a Corcoran state prison sentence following a felony conviction for assault with a deadly weapon and armed robbery in San Francisco. After he was paroled, Mixon went in and out of prison. When the shootings happened, he was living in East Oakland at his grandmother's house and was wanted on a no-bail arrest warrant for violating his current parole conditions. On March 20, 2009, the day before the shootings, the Oakland Police Department learned that Mixon was linked by DNA to the February 5, 2009 rape of a 12-year-old girl who was dragged off the street at gunpoint in the East Oakland neighborhood where Mixon's sister lived. On May 4, 2009 a state laboratory confirmed not just this link, but also confirmed that Mixon robbed and raped two young women about seven hours before the shootings. Investigators said that Mixon may have committed several other rapes during recent months, although no convictions or indictments had been secured before his death. If Mixon had been arrested for his parole violation, he would have faced at most six months in prison; if convicted of rape, he faced a life sentence.
Mixon had also been the primary suspect in a previous murder case; however, due to lack of evidence he had been charged only with lesser violations: possession of drug paraphernalia, forgery, identity theft, attempted grand theft, and receiving stolen property.
Read more about this topic: 2009 Shootings Of Oakland Police Officers
Famous quotes containing the word perpetrator:
“But ice-crunching and loud gum-chewing, together with drumming on tables, and whistling the same tune seventy times in succession, because they indicate an indifference on the part of the perpetrator to the rest of the world in general, are not only registered on the delicate surfaces of the brain but eat little holes in it until it finally collapses or blows up.”
—Robert Benchley (1889–1945)