A security guard on disability because of back pain is believed to be behind the killing of a Fresno County sheriff’s detective and the wounding of two other law enforcement officers, a neighbor said Friday.
Rick Liles and his wife, Diane, had rented a mobile home for more than nine years on a ranch in the rural community of Minkler, 20 miles east of Fresno, said Peggy Minkler, wife of the property owner.
“They had very little company,” Minkler said. “They were good renters, kept up the place really good.”
Then on Thursday, Liles allegedly opened fire on officers serving a search warrant at his home in connection with a recent spate of arsons and a shooting.
A sheriff’s detective, who authorities plan to identify Friday afternoon, was killed.
A sheriff’s deputy was wounded and was in stable condition. The third victim was, Javier Bejar, 28, a police officer in the nearby community of Reedley. He is on life support but is not expected to recover, said a Reedley city official.
Sheriff’s deputies responded to the shootings with a huge show of force, flooding the bucolic community with patrol cars, a bomb squad, a SWAT team and a helicopter, and closing the area for several hours. Liles was found dead in the mobile home Thursday afternoon.
Minkler said her family had no inkling that Liles might be involved in such an incident. She denied talk that there had been a feud on the property between Liles and her sister-in-law, who rented a nearby mobile home. Instead, she said, there were minor spats between them in recent months.
Meanwhile, in what the family believed were unrelated incidents, the ranch had been the scene of a series of arson fires. The ranch has been in the family since the 1800s; the family grows persimmons, oranges, plums and walnuts.
In September, Minkler said, two rental properties — a shop and a storage shed– were burned. Over the next few months, 14 more arson fires were set, Minkler said. Some burned patches of grass, and, once, several boxes used in fruit-picking were burned.
“We’ve been totally confused. We had no idea who was doing it,” Minkler said.
Never did they suspect Liles, she said. Indeed, the night of the September arson, Liles was helping out with a flashlight, moving a car that would have been burned.
Then Monday, Minkler said, bullets were fired through her sister-in-law’s mobile home and a nearby store. One bullet hit her sister-in-law in the buttocks, she said. The next day, sheriff’s investigators told the family that they were getting close to having enough evidence for a search warrant.
“They didn’t come right out and tell us who they suspected,” Minkler said. “We were totally in denial, that [Liles] would do something like that. We really didn’t know” whom investigators suspected.
“Whatever they had up to that point, I think the shooting gave them enough evidence to get the search warrant,” she said.
Minkler said Liles had worked as a security guard at night, sleeping during the day, for several years. Then, a few years ago, back pain kept him from working, she said. Minkler said she didn't know if Liles was taking pain medication, but that he was scheduled to have surgery.
“His back was pretty severe. I talked to him about back surgery that I had had,” she said.
— Sam Quinones
Photo: Fresno Bee
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