Gunman Held After Chase

PALMDALE — It was a classic nightmare; a suspected robber, fleeing from a gun battle with police, burst into their backyard, wearing a military outfit and firing an AK-47.

Run? Pray?

“He told me I was going with him,” said Ja’Nice Wolfe. “I told him, ‘The hell I am.’ ”

Then, during a scuffle, her boyfriend, Thomas Thrun, whacked the gunman with a tire iron and Wolfe polished him off with blows to the neck and head using a shovel.

The suspect, identified by police as Mario Barraillier, 38, of Palmdale, was in Antelope Valley Hospital in critical condition Monday, held on suspicion of robbery and suspicion of attempted murder of a peace officer.

He had been stopped on suspicion of shoplifting at a local Kmart when he opened fire on store guards, sheriff’s deputies said. After a gun battle with CHP officers on the Antelope Valley Freeway, he turned onto Sierra Highway and entered Sierra Village Mobile Home Park, where he encountered Thrun and Wolfe, who fly a Confederate flag and a skull-and-crossbones pirate banner from their mobile home.

He was screaming obscenities, carrying an AK-47 and wearing a bullet-proof vest and camouflage fatigues with Marine Corps medals when he broke into their yard about 8:15 p.m. Sunday, they told Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies.

When the couple told him to get off their property, he pointed the gun at them and grabbed Wolfe, 32, by the hair and demanded that she leave with him.

Wolfe said she pushed the gun away just as it went off and saved herself from being shot in the face. At the same time, Thrun struck the intruder on the side of the head with a tire iron and began trying to wrestle the gun away.

Barraillier aimed the rifle at Thrun, Wolfe said, and while his attention was turned away from her, she grabbed a nearby shovel and struck him in the back of the neck.

“I didn’t want to kill anyone, but he was pointing the gun at my future husband,” Wolfe said. “There was no time to stand there and be stupid. If we didn’t do anything, I’d be lying dead in the desert right now.”

Wolfe said she hit Barraillier on the head and neck a total of four times before he lay sufficiently still for the couple to jump onto him and tie him up before deputies arrived.

Thrun, 42, suffered minor cuts and bruises in the scuffle.

Barraillier was being chased after he fled the Kmart by car with a woman and two children who were waiting outside.

Shortly after, he was stopped for speeding by CHP officers--unaware who he was--and opened fire on them with a .45-caliber handgun, said Sheriff’s Sgt. Ken Ruppert.

Barraillier sped away as officers fired back and gave chase. Neither the store’s security guards nor the CHP officers were hit, a sheriff’s spokesman said.

As he fled south on the Antelope Valley Freeway, chased by CHP officers and sheriff’s deputies, Barraillier stopped the car and pushed the woman, who was wounded in the leg, and the two children out of the vehicle.

The woman, identified by deputies as Laura LaFrenais, 37, of Palmdale, was taken to County-USC Medical Center and was also being held on suspicion of attempted murder. Deputies said it was unclear whether she was shot in the exchange with CHP officers or whether Barraillier shot her before pushing her out of the car. The Sheriff’s Department did not release the children’s names.