LAKEPORT, Calif. – A Santa Rosa man who was shot by a sheriff's deputy in January after ramming his pickup into a Lakeport Police officer's vehicle has been identified as the inmate who died at the jail last Saturday.
Lt. Steve Brooks of the Lake County Sheriff's Office said the inmate who died was James Ellis Smith, 37.
A correctional officer found Smith shortly after 9 a.m. last Saturday, May 10, during a routine cell check, Brooks reported.
Jail staff and Lakeport Fire personnel attempted cardiopulmonary resuscitation but could not revive Smith, according to Brooks' original report.
Sheriff's officials are waiting to release further details about Smith's death – including the exact cause – until they have the result of an autopsy, which was to have taken place on Wednesday, Brooks added.
Smith was shot early on the morning of Jan. 3 after a burglary attempt that led to a high speed chase, as Lake County News has reported.
A Lakeport Police officer found Smith in the process of burglarizing Hillside Honda shortly after 4 a.m. that day, according to case reports.
Smith fled in a gold pickup, leading the officer on a pursuit that reached 100 miles per hour and continued outside of the city limits, with sheriff's deputies joining in, officials reported.
In the area of Riggs Road Smith went off the road and into a corral, then put the pickup into reverse and backed up at high speed into the Lakeport Police officer's vehicle, based on the incident report.
Officials reported that as Smith was preparing to back up again – with the Lakeport Police officer at that point out of the patrol vehicle – a Lake County Sheriff's deputy arriving on the scene shot Smith two to three times, hitting him in the elbow and body, and also giving him a grazing wound to the head.
Smith was treated at an out-of-county trauma center. He was booked into the Lake County Jail on Jan. 10 on a charge of first-degree burglary, according to jail records.
Bail was set at $150,000, jail records indicated, and Smith had remained in custody since that time.
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