A man engaged in an intense argument with his wife that escalated into gunfire used one of the guns in his possession to fatally shoot with a single shot one of the first deputies to arrive on scene during the noon hour on Monday, October 27.
The man, identified as Angelo Jose Saldivar, 47, was captured less than an hour later, after he fled on a motorcycle in a mad dash on the 210 Freeway westward into Los Angeles County and then reversed course in what was an apparent effort to ditch pursuing authorities, only to have an unanticipated run-in with the side of a vehicle driven by an off-duty deputy, a colleague of the many he had just killed.
Saldivar survived the collision, despite having been launched forward over the hood of the car he had collided with and then impacting the ground on his back while being carried forward by his momentum at a speed nearing or exceeding 60 miles per hour and then being hammered by his tumbling motorcycle. It is anticipated that the San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office will charge him with first degree murder and seek the application of the death penalty pursuant to a sentencing enhancement relating to having killed an on-duty police officer once Saldivar is released from the hospital where he remains in stable condition.
The sheriff’s department dispatch center received multiple calls from the neighbors of Veronica Garcia Saldivar, also known as Veronica Garcia Zaragosa, a resident of the condominium complex at 12346 Hollyhock Drive in Rancho Cucamonga, which is part of the residential component at the north end of Victoria Gardens, at around 12:30 pm on Monday, October 27. Those calling reported hearing loud yelling and intense arguing, with two caller’s relaying that they believed they heard gunshots.
Records indicate that Angelo Saldivar and Veronica Saldivar, who married in 2007, previously and as late as 2023 cohabited at 12346 Hollyhock Drive Unit 2 in Rancho Cucamonga. San Bernardino County Superior Court records show that on November 13, 2024, Veronica filed for divorce and that a final dissolution of the marriage was granted on July 30, 2025, with the notice of the entry of judgment filed on August 20, 2025. It appears that Veronica retained the Hollyhock Drive domicile. There is conflicting information to suggest that Angelo had been living at 6323 Ashton Court in San Bernardino, from February 2023 until July 2025 and that he had maintained a residence as well at 17186 Pioneer Way from February 2022 until March of 2025. There is an indication that Angelo Saldivar was living off and on at 2609 West Myers Road in San Bernardino from January 2017 until July of 2025.
There are reports to indicate that Angelo was, unrealistically, pursuing a reconciliation with his ex-wife.
On October 27, it appears, he began flailing when he was unable to convince her to end their estrangement, and a bitter argument ensued, during which he sought to physically force her to leave the 12346 Hollyhock Drive premises and accompany him to some yet unknown destination, having latched onto her arm and attempting to drag her toward her car.
Both Angelo and Saldivar are known to have owned numerous firearms. At some point after the former couple had begun their argument, at least two and perhaps as many as four gunshots rang out.
Upon the first of the sheriff’s vehicles reaching Hollyhock Drive, Angelo Saldivar apparently retreated into the condominium he once shared with his wife and their teenage daughter. It is believed, but not known for sure, that he may have armed himself with at least one and perhaps two of his wife’s firearms at that point.
Either the first or the second deputy to arrive on Hollyhock Drive was Andrew Nuñez, 27, a five-year veteran of the sheriff’s department who had been stationed in Rancho Cucamonga for four of those years.  When, after a short interlude inside the condominium Angelo Saldivar emerged, Nuñez was the closest deputy to the condominium’s entrance. It is not clear whether Nuñez had oriented himself properly as to location or whether he knew that the domestic disturbance was centered at Unit 2 at the 12346 Hollyhock Drive address. To the nearby residents who were observing the goings-on, it did not appear that Nuñez, who was standing near his patrol unit with the driver’s side door open, saw Angelo Saldivar on the porch or, if he did, recognized he was the individual at the center of the incident he had been called to. Saldivar then raised the gun and fired a single shot at Nuñez, who was no more than 50 to 55 feet away, hitting him in the head.
Several people saw Nuñez felled. Some ducked for cover. Saldivar apparently went back into the condominium. There are conflicting reports as to whether he fired more shots at other deputies on the scene or ones who arrived shortly thereafter, or if the gun shots heard by some bystanders were ones fired by deputies positioned outside the bystanders’ line of sight. At some point, Saldivar either exited the condominium from an alternate exit at the back of the building or found his way into the enclosure of another unit and from there made his way to his motorcycle, and quickly rumbled away.
He was spotted by the deputies, who gave chase up Day Creek Boulevard. He then made his way onto the 210 Freeway headed west. There ensued a chase, with the motorcycle far ahead of the pack, accelerating to a speed well in excess of 120 miles per hour and, at one point for a short distance,  reaching nearly 150 miles per hour, as Saldivar, wearing a backpack and dark helmet and visor, blasted past cars traveling at 55, 60, 65, and 70 miles per hour in a blur as if they were standing still. Despite his desperate and bold daring, his speed, the distance he was able to rapidly put between himself and his immediate pursuers and the risk he was willing to take, when he did not make a quick exit from the freeway and succeed in finding visual anonymity somewhere in urban landscape elsewhere in Rancho Cucamonga or Upland, Saldivar found himself being trailed and seen, by at first a handful of patrol units from the sheriff’s department and the Upland Police Department and then dozens, which became scores of various law enforcement agencies, including the Highway Patrol, the Claremont Police Department, the La Verne Police Department, the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department and the Azusa Police Department, all of which were on the ground. In short order, law enforcement agency and then television/radio news helicopters were overhead, charting and documenting, on video, his movements and location in real time.
Heading toward the heart of the Los Angeles megalopolis, he exited from the freeway, turned south and then abruptly got back onto the freeway, heading east.  He sped along, perhaps contemplating reaching the more familiar turf of San Bernardino where he could ditch those who were after him.
At one point, after safely outdistancing his closest pursuers, he had slowed down to a respectable 68-to 70 miles per hour in the Diamond/High-Occupancy-Vehicle inner lane, seemingly trying to blend in with the traffic around him, as if he could somehow lose himself among the other vehicles. As if out of nowhere, a California Highway motorcycle moved up close behind him and then went to his left so that the Highway Patrol cycle’s front wheel was nearly even with Saldivar’s back wheel. That jolted Saldivar, who glanced back to his left as if to confirm what he had seen in his mirror or out of the corner of his eye, at which point he accelerated his machine up to somewhere in the vicinity of 85 miles per hour once again.
The fleeting proximity of the Highway Patrol motorbike served as something of a wake-up call to Saldivar, it seemed and once he was a safe distance ahead of the Highway Patrolman, he dropped down took both hands off the handlebars as he began fidgeting around and pulled a gun out of his backpack and his pockets, and appeared to be putting bullets in its chamber.
Near the Campus Avenue exit of the eastbound 210 shortly after 1:30 p.m. as Saldivar and his motorcycle were about to pass on the left, as had been the case several hundred times over the previous fifteen minutes or so, another slower-moving vehicle in the Diamond Lane, this time a gray Toyota, the Toyota made an at first subtle drift to its left followed by a somewhat sharper movement across the yellow line separating the Diamond Lane from the inner freeway shoulder. Saldiver reacted to adjust, but at the speed he was traveling at that point – about 68 miles per hour – not in time to avoid having the motorcycle’s front tire plunge into the Toyota’s driver’s side of the car. The impact launched Saldivar in an arc headed over the hood of the car as the driver deftly steered right, avoiding hitting Saldivar who flipped in mid-air and landed on his back on the shoulder of the road.
It appeared that two firearms that were in the backpack fell out onto the pavement, when Saldivar’s arms came out of the rucksack’s straps as he was tumbling before coming into contact with the ground.
The motorcycle, meanwhile, careened more sharply leftward than the rider it had now lost, hitting into the retaining while between the eastbound and westbound lanes of the freeway, then bouncing and flipping to come down, temporarily, on Salvidar, as both the bike’s and the man’s momentum carried them eastward.
Within three minutes, at least 21 law enforcement vehicles were parked across four of the lanes west and behind where Saldivar came to rest. Several officers swarmed him, but he was incapacitated by the crash and the injuries he had sustained. An overhead video showed that eventually Saldivar was sitting up as paramedics administered to him and he was loaded onto a stretcher and transported from the crash site on the 210 to a hospital via helicopter.
Saldivar is to be taken into custody once he is medically cleared for release.