Paso Robles shooter stole guns from SLO lawyer and threatened bus driver, police say
Paso Robles shooting suspect Mason James Lira stole two guns from a lawyer’s office in San Luis Obispo and threatened to shoot a bus driver in the days leading up to a rampage that left a homeless man dead and four officers injured, according to SLO police.
One week after Lira died in a shootout with law enforcement, a clearer picture is now emerging about his life and the activities that preceded the explosion of violence and the two-day manhunt that ended in a hail of gunfire.
Sometime between 5:30 p.m. that Monday night and 6:30 a.m. Tuesday, police say, Lira broke into a private lawyer’s office on Osos Street in San Luis Obispo and stole two handguns — a .38-caliber revolver and a 40-caliber semi-automatic handgun.
In the theft, Lira, a 26-year-old transient, also took clothing, jewelry, a duffel bag, and an unknown amount of ammunition, police said. Video surveillance captured Lira walking behind the office location, SLO police noted.
Earlier that day, police also say Lira threatened to shoot a bus driver in the head at about 4:30 p.m. while exiting the vehicle, after they identified him using surveillance video footage from the bus.
“Investigators from San Luis Obispo Police Department and San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Office collaborated and identified several connections between the shootings and stolen firearms,” SLOPD officials said in a news release Thursday. “Based on physical evidence located in the City of Paso Robles and surveillance video located in the City of San Luis Obispo, it was determined Mason Lira was the suspect in the commercial burglary.”
Police are still investigating whether the guns taken from the lawyer’s office were the same used in the shooting spree that killed a homeless man at close range and wounded four law enforcement officials on June 10 and June 11, including Sheriff’s Deputy Nicholas Dreyfus, who was shot in the head.
Dreyfus remains in a hospital out of the area in serious but stable condition, and “has been showing improvement over the last few days,” sheriff’s spokesman Tony Cipolla said Wednesday, adding it’s “unknown at this time when he will be released to return to SLO County.”
SLO Capt. Jeff Smith told The Tribune that police could find no evidence that Lira had a connection to the lawyer’s office.
“There’s nothing that links (Lira) to the attorney, who I think specializes in family law,” Smith said. “It wasn’t a situation where the lawyer represented him in a criminal case or any connection like that.”
SLO break-in investigation continues
Smith declined to say which SLO lawyer’s office was broken into, citing further need for follow-up investigation.
But a city police log shows that the office of Robert Bettencourt, a family lawyer, reported a burglary on June 9.
Bettencourt, whose office on Osos Street is located a block from the courthouse and the Fremont Theater, didn’t respond to repeated requests for comment on the reported burglary and whether he was the one whose guns were stolen.
Smith said police are still gathering information, but the victim said the burglar entered the office through an unlocked window.
“We have an ongoing investigation and plan to do follow-up interviews on that,” Smith said. “I don’t know whether he might have jimmied it to get in or what.”
Smith did not say where in the office the gun was taken from, but he advised the public to always store firearms in a secure place.
“(The public) should safely store any kind of weapon,” Smith said.
How Mason Lira got around
It’s unclear how long Lira was in SLO before he traveled up to the North County, but Paso Robles Police Chief Ty Lewis said authorities believed Lira was in SLO County for about a week before the shooting spree began.
Records show he had roamed throughout the state, as well as in Washington and Oregon, prior to his arrival in San Luis Obispo County.
Smith said that city police helped piece together information on Lira’s movements prior to the shooting based on surveillance photos taken of him throughout SLO.
After the burglary, Lira apparently laid low for a night before suddenly attacking the Paso police station shortly after 3 a.m. on the morning of June 10.
A responding sheriff’s deputy, Dreyfus, was shot in the face near the station, and police later found the body of a local homeless man, James Harding Watson, 58, who was found dead, shot in the back of the head, at about 7 a.m. along the tracks near the Paso Robles train station.
On the afternoon of June 11, after an overnight manhunt in which Lira fired on officers multiple times, the Sheriff’s Office says, Lira emerged from hiding and shot an Arroyo Grande officer in the industrial area at the southern end of Paso Robles.
Officers converged on the site near Volpi Ysabel Avenue in a massive response. After officials said they found Lira hiding in the Salinas Riverbed, two officers were shot and Lira was killed in the final exchange. The law enforcement officials suffered non-life threatening injuries.
This story was originally published June 18, 2020 at 4:38 PM.
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