A parolee was arrested Wednesday, nearly eight months after shooting a man who tried to intervene during a dispute with a woman in Costa Mesa, officials said.
Around 5:40 a.m. on March 2, officers responded to a call of shots fired in the 2000 block of Harbor Boulevard and learned that a man had been shot and was driven to a hospital, the Costa Mesa Police Department said in a news release Thursday.
Officers located the 30-year-old victim, who was being treated for a gunshot wound to the neck at a nearby hospital.
An investigation revealed the victim heard a disturbance between a man and a woman. After hearing the woman scream, the victim ran to a parking lot to investigate and saw her running away as a man chased her.
Concerned for the woman’s well being, the victim followed the man, later identified as 29-year-old Max Diamond of Norwalk.
Meanwhile, the woman was able to get away by running south on Harbor Boulevard. Diamond then turned around and confronted the victim, police said.
“While Diamond was standing face to face with the victim, Diamond pulled a gun from his waistband and shot him,” police said in the news release.
Diamond then fled the scene by running north on Harbor Boulevard.
The victim suffered a gunshot wound to the neck and was later released from the hospital, police said.
During the ongoing investigation, detectives identified Diamond and began to search for him, including through a “wanted” flyer broadcast to law enforcement. Several days later, unable to locate Diamond, police warned the public and sought assistance to find him by releasing information about the attempted homicide along with his photo.
On Wednesday, after learning where Diamond was staying, detectives were able to follow a vehicle he was traveling in to a gas station at the 2600 block of La Palma in Anaheim, where he was arrested without incident, police said.