Sheriff’s Deputy Claims Brother’s Fatal Shooting Was an Accident

A 25-year-old Orange County sheriff’s deputy has been placed on administrative leave while investigators from the district attorney’s office investigate the fatal shooting of his brother, a spokesman said Saturday.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Wallace Wade said Deputy Donald W. McKay was questioned by detectives after the Friday afternoon shooting in Capistrano Beach, but has been released from custody pending further investigation.

McKay allegedly shot his 22-year-old brother, John McKay, at the victim’s Capistrano Beach duplex, authorities have said. The younger McKay was rushed to Mission Community Hospital where he died shortly after the 2:39 p.m. shooting.

The deputy was off duty at the time of the incident, according to a sheriff’s spokesman, and McKay reportedly ias told investigators that his gun discharged accidentally.

A high-ranking officer in the Sheriff’s Department said the older McKay was involved in an accidental shooting about six months ago, but in that incident McKay was the victim.

‘Muzzle Is on Us’

An autopsy has been completed, but Deputy Coroner Richard Slaughter said he could not reveal any details about the incident, including the number or location of the victim’s gunshot wounds.

“When there is an officer-involved shooting, the muzzle is on us and all the information must come out of the D.A.’s office,� Slaughter said Saturday.

Wade said it was standard policy at the district attorney’s office not to divulge the results of an autopsy while an investigation of an officer-involved shooting is in progress.

Lt. Richard Olson, the official Sheriff’s Department spokesman, also declined to give out any information regarding the case except to confirm the names of the two brothers.

“The only authorization I have is to give out the names,� he said, adding that the district attorney’s investigators were in possession of McKay’s personnel file, and, therefore, details on McKay, his length of service or other possible shooting incidents were not immediately available.

But two high-ranking Sheriff’s Department officers, speaking on condition that they not be identified, said McKay had been a deputy sheriff less than a year and was working at the county’s James A. Musick minimum security jail in Lake Forest.

The former Marine was described as being about 6 feet tall and weighing 200 pounds. One officer said McKay had performed well during his 16-week training at the sheriff’s academy before being sworn in as a deputy. “He did OK, better than average,� the officer said.

The officers said it was their understanding that McKay was showing his weapon to his brother, thinking it was unloaded, when it accidentally discharged, striking the younger man.

According to the officers, McKay had been involved in another shooting about six months ago. They said McKay was accidentally shot in the chest, but that he escaped serious injury because the bullet narrowly missed his heart.

Asked to confirm that McKay had previously been involved in a shooting, in which he was the victim, Wade replied tersely, “No comment.�

A neighbor of the dead brother said she was not at home at the time of the shooting, but that other neighbors at the complex in the 34000 block of Via Verde had told her it had been an accident.

“He was nice, but I knew him only to say hello and chat a little,� Maureen Thomas said of her next-door-neighbor, John McKay, who worked at a local grocery store. “My daughter knew him a little better.�