By Stephen Baxter, Contra Costa Times
Original publication date: June 10, 2011

Watsonville, Calif. — Police continued Thursday to investigate what prompted a 22-year-old Watsonville man to load and fire a gun inside a Big 5 sporting goods store before he was shot dead by police.

Officers also praised the store’s assistant manager, who they said stayed remarkably calm as she described the shooter’s movements to a 911 dispatcher. (Listen to the 9-1-1 call, courtesy of the Santa Cruz (Calif.) Regional 9-1-1 Center.) In her 11:10 a.m. call to police, Letitia Mello, 31, described how Robin Miranda came in the store with an electric saw and cut away a lock from a shotgun on a wall rack. In the call, the audio of which police released Thursday, Mello told the dispatcher that she was in her locked office and watching Miranda through a window.

“He loaded the gun. He sawed it in half and loaded the gun. And he’s walking back toward me. (Shot) Oh my God, he just fired. He just fired,” Mello told the dispatcher.

“What’s he shooting at?” the dispatcher asked. “I don’t know, I just got underneath the desk!” Mello said.

Miranda had entered the store minutes earlier trying to buy a rifle and showed his ID to Mello. He left and came back minutes later with an electric saw and started cutting the locks on the gun rack to remove a rifle, police said. But he gave up on the rifle and cut out a shotgun from the same rack on the wall before loading it with ammunition, police said.

Within two minutes of the start of the 911 call, Watsonville master officer Zane Ota and detective Donny Thul arrived on the scene. They ordered Miranda, who was holding the gun, to drop it but he refused, Watsonville Police Chief Manny Solano said. They fired five shots.

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