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Sheriff’s deputy injured at Lake Nacimiento

May 28, 2010

Michael Garrett Youngblood

UPDATE: A San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s deputy was injured Friday evening at Lake Nacimiento when a fleeing parolee from Salinas tried to kill the officer with his truck.

Deputies responded to a call of a disturbance at the popular campground shortly after 7:30 p.m. As the officers approached, the suspect–later identified as Michael Garrett Youngblood–attempted to flee by driving his truck through an adjacent camp site. Youngblood hit a tent and allegedly drove towards one of the deputies.

The deputy fired his gun before being struck by the truck and knocked to the ground. He suffered a compound fracture in his leg. Youngblood tried to back up, but his vehicle became stuck in the dirt and he was quickly taken into custody.

No one was injured by the gun shots.

The injured deputy was airlifted to Twin Cities Hospital where he is listed in good condition.

A press release sent out earlier in the evening by Sheriff’s department spokesperson Rob Bryn reported the deputy had actually been shot

“A deputy has been shot and the person believed responsible is in custody at Nacimiento Lake,”  Bryn told the local media. “The wounded deputy has been transported to Twin Cities Hospital with a gunshot wound. No further information is available at this time. PIO responding to Lake Nacimiento to staging area at the new boat ramp.”

As more information becomes available, CalCoastNews will keep you updated.


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I was personally there and the Sheriff deputy acted extremely courageous and fulfilled his job duties,to protect and serve. He was faced with assault with a deadly weapon and matched it with the appropriate force. I personally would like to thank the Rangers and Sheriff’s for doing an outstanding job. My hat goes off to all of you! We have seen a vast improvement in the quality of people going out to Lake Nacimiento. A lot of families are making the trip because of these fine officers efforts to be proactive. In my opinion and many others who were at the incident, Mr. Youngblood absolutely deserved what came to him. Thank God, the injured officer will be okay. Our prayers go out to him for a speedy recovery! Hopefully, Mr. Youngblood will be locked up for the rest of his life.


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I think you all should really shut the **** up let’s not forget there’s two sides to every story!!! That’s my best frien y’all are bashing so unless u were there and seen what happend u should all shut the hell up!!! I’m not saying what happend to the cop was right but let’s not forget shit tends to get exagerated when a cop open fires on someone. Especially someone who isn’t capable of doing something like that intentionally. I think I would try to run and drive off too if I was being shot at just because of a noise complaint. It’s the lake come on! Really! People go to party and drink there’s bound to be noise. Pulling out a gun and firing before he drove off is bullshit!


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OK then, set everyone straight. If you were there, then tell everyone what really happened.


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I thank God that the deputy will recover from his injury. We need these men and women to keep us safe and I greatly appreciate their hard work. The tragedy averted by the deputy could have been devastating to many innocent campers. That is the kind of professional service that is apparently typical but overshadowed by poor leadership. I would really like to bash Mr. Bryn for once again losing control of his tongue, but it seems a little inappropriate at this time. We are thankful for this hero and the rest of the cops working the streets.


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I also saw the headlines in the Tribune stating that a deputy had been shot. Perhaps Bryn has a problem with mouthing off without the facts as we have recently seen in the past few weeks. (refer to “Sheriff’s Spokes Person seeing red”).

I have to wonder how much backup this Deputy had at the time. Seems to me that this criminal never should have managed to run through a tent and hit the Deputy. I would have expected to hear that the guy had been hit with 30 rounds and rightfully so. Sometimes I feel like it’s damned if they do and damned if they don’t when it comes to LEO opening fire. This person actually did ram his truck into that Deputy and the Deputy is fortunate that all he has is a compound fracture to his leg, which is a very serious injury but better than the injuries he could have suffered. With a 100 people in the vicinity perhaps that is why they didn’t just blast this dangerous criminal or maybe the Deputy didn’t have any backup at the time. Either way, my best wishes to our HERO Deputy. Sad that so much violence has reached the Central Coast.


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I agree with your thoughts about how this criminal should have ended up. I’m not sure I agree with the damned if they do and damned if they don’t sentiment. I think that the public is pretty reasonable even in situations which are borderline. The problem is when an officer clearly uses poor judgement but are backed up by their peers and department anyway, it undermines long term credibility.


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Yes, I should have used a different term rather than, “damned if they do and damned if they don’t”.

I noticed that for some crazy reason some of the folks in the TT were down on this Deputy. I am the last one to encourage shooting people but this is a case where the guy appears to have attempted to kill whoever got in his way, in this case, a cop. Point is that I get very angry when I see LE step over the line and I am more than willing to step up and support them when they are right.


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According to other information, the only person that fired any shots was the deputy, who was shooting at a individual trying to flee. The individual was a parolee… I’m curious to know if this fact was ascertained prior to attempting to shoot him or after apprehending him,.


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mkaney–We have posted the initial announcement from the Sheriff’s department of a deputy being shot for you to see above. Thankfully, Rob was mistaken in his initial report. It happens.


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Unacceptable! Lol just kidding. That’s one heck of a mistake on Byryn’s part, but I’m sure it was a hectic situation. I hope the deputy recovers fully and quickly, and assuming it all happened as described, they should have just shot the guy at the scene and saved us some cash.


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Did you ever make it past third grade??


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Awesome, I get veiled threats from both cops and criminals. So much love.


Jaye: You might notice that I wrote “assuming it all happened as described,” which I think is a pretty huge disclaimer. I am not someone who automatically sides with law enforcement, so before you go all ballistic, why don’t you tell us the WHOLE story. As it stands, your reaction is helping to make the cops’ point and not yours.


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