The reported fight for a Riverside County sheriff’s deputy’s gun in Corona on Tuesday resulted in a San Diego County resident being arrested on suspicion of murder and mayhem after the deputy shot to death a woman involved in the struggle and the deputy was hospitalized, the Sheriff’s Department said.
Eric Nourani, 33, was also booked into Robert Presley Detention Center in Riverside on suspicion of attempted murder of a peace officer. He was being held in lieu of $1 million bail, jail records show.
Also see: Man charged with murder after deputy he fought in Corona shot woman
The District Attorney’s Office will ultimately decide whether to attempt to hold Nourani responsible for the woman’s death. No charges had been announced as of Wednesday afternoon, June 12.
A person of the same name and age as Nourani has three criminal cases listed in San Diego County. One was a felony conviction for assault that was later reduced to a misdemeanor, according to Tanya Sierra, a spokeswoman for the San Diego County District Attorney’s Office. The other two were misdemeanor cases. The most recent was in 2014. Nourani has no documented criminal record in Riverside or San Bernardino counties.
The deputy was the victim of the mayhem accusation, said Lt. Deirdre Vickers, a sheriff’s spokeswoman. The state Penal Code describes mayhem as cutting off, disabling or rendering a limb useless, or cutting a tongue or putting out an eye or slitting a nose or lip.
Vickers declined to elaborate on the deputy’s injuries or say whether they were career-threatening, but he was released from the hospital where he was treated after several hours.
The confrontation happened just after 1 a.m. when a deputy tried to talk to several people who were in the 1000 block of West 6th Street. He chased them when they ran. The man lunged at the deputy as the deputy turned a corner, and they fought, the department said. The woman was shot when she joined the fight for the gun, the department said.
Bystanders eventually helped the deputy subdue the man.
The Coroner’s Office had not released the woman’s name as of Wednesday afternoon.
