Police Say Would-Be Burglar Shot by Homeowner Scaled Wall, Broke Window

Long Beach police investigating the shooting death of an alleged burglar by a homeowner in the Bluff Park neighborhood said they found evidence the 29-year-old suspect scaled a wall and broke a window to get into the home.

Friends of Ryan Mitchell Anderson, however, said they suspected he had been drinking and accidentally stumbled into the home in the 2800 block of East Third Street about 2:20 a.m. Sunday. Anderson reportedly lived about four blocks away.

“I just don’t believe he was a burglar because he’s just not that kind of guy,” Amanda Farhall, a friend of Anderson’s, told CBS2.

This afternoon, Long Beach police said detectives found evidence that Anderson “scaled a wall to gain access to the backyard and then broke a window to enter the home.”

Police also said Anderson was “found to have personal property belonging to the resident on his person.”

Authorities have ordered a toxicology report to determine if Anderson was under the influence of alcohol or drugs, or both. Those tests normally take several weeks to come back.

On July 23, Tom Greer, 80, was ambushed by a man and a woman inside his Bixby Knolls home and eventually shot and killed the woman, who begged him not to shoot her and falsely told him she was pregnant.

Her alleged accomplice, Gus Adams, who initially got away, was later charged with her murder under California’s vicarious murder law.

--City News Service

PHOTO Patch file photo.