Police shoot murder suspect after high-speed chase on election night 

Last night at approximately 8 p.m., Shasta County sheriff’s deputies responded to a residence on Los Gatos Avenue, in the City of Shasta Lake to a report of an adult female gunshot victim.

That information was released by sheriff’s deputies on Facebook around 2 a.m. this morning, a few hours after a high-stakes pursuit with gunfire that left one man injured and some downtown residents reeling. 

Deputies said they shot a murder suspect, 32-year-old Reese Colton Churulich, after he fired at pursuing officers multiple times. Churulich was transferred to the hospital with injuries and will be booked into the Shasta County Jail once he’s released, the sheriff’s office said.

According to law enforcement, he was pursued by police over multiple city lines after fleeing the gunshot scene in Shasta Lake in his vehicle. The pursuit, which involved “excessive speed,” occurred shortly after election polls closed at 8 p.m., officers said. 

The sheriff’s office and Redding Police Department were involved, with the high-speed chase ending in the area of Cypress Avenue and Hartnell Avenue in downtown Redding. Law enforcement said they stopped the suspect by using a “successful precision immobilization technique.” It’s a low-speed method used to stop pursuits by forcing the fleeing vehicle to make a 180 degree turn abruptly so that it stalls and stops. 

Once stopped, law enforcement said Churulich stepped out of his vehicle and began shooting at officers who shot back, wounding him. 

The Shasta County Multi-Agency Officer Involved Critical Incident Response Team, or OICIRT, is conducting an investigation, the law enforcement press release said. The multi-agency team looks into police incidents resulting in serious injury or death, such as shootings and other uses of force. Under this protocol, several Shasta County law enforcement agencies work together to examine the facts and circumstances surrounding an incident to present to the district attorney, according to the Shasta County Sheriff’s Office’s policy manual. 

The shooting occurred amid Election Day buzz. Community members who were at the Market Street elections office downtown to await vote count results wondered aloud if the pursuit had connections to long lines that had been queued up at the Redding City Hall drop box for hours. Some reported hearing gunshots near the KRCR station on Auditorium Drive. 

Due to the pursuit, the Redding Police Department established road closures on Cypress and Hartnell last night that were not lifted until around 8 a.m. this morning.

Churulich has been charged with violation of a restraining order and attempted murder, along with several other charges. Information about his condition as well as that of the alleged shooting victim, who was also transported to the hospital, has not yet been released. 

Last year, Shasta Scout reported on numerous incidents involving police shooting and pursuits in the county including that of 35-year-old Christopher Michael Scott, a motorcyclist who died as a result of a pursuit, David Schaeffer, a 46-year old Anderson man who was shot by police as he sat in his car, and 52-year-old William Clark Littlefield, who was shot by police outside of a residence on Bob’s Mountain Road. 

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