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CNN Saturday Morning News

James Beck Presumed Dead

Aired September 01, 2001 - 09:11   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN ANCHOR: We begin now turning back to our top story, the aftermath of a deadly police standoff in California. Authorities in Santa Clarita resumed searching for the rubble -- or through the rubble of a burned-out house today. They are looking for the remains of a man suspected of killing a sheriff's deputy.

CNN's Hena Cuevas joins us live for the scene with details. Good morning to you.

HENA CUEVAS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Marty.

The L.A. County Sheriff Department say they still haven't found the body of 35-year-old James Beck, who's presumed to have died in his home in the fire yesterday. The standoff between Beck and authorities began yesterday morning when authorities say they went to serve a search warrant to Beck's home for an ongoing investigation three months into illegal firearms possession. That's when they say gunfire erupted, and a deputy was shot and killed.

It was 40-year-old sheriff's deputy Jake Kuredjian, and a 17-year veteran of the force.

During the standoff, fire erupted, and at this point it's still unclear whether it was started by Beck from inside the house or if it was triggered by the tear gas that was used for doing the standoff.

After the fire ended, authorities started looking through the rubble to try and see if they can find Beck's body. They presume he died. Nobody saw him leave the house during the time that the fire and the standoff was going on. So they say they think that he wasn't able to leave the house and that he is presumed dead.

They will resume the search in less than an hour. They called it off last night about 9:00 p.m. because it was dark and there were still concerns about the instability of the structure -- Marty.

SAVIDGE: All right, Hena. Do you think that if they do not find anything, where do we go back to, ground zero as far as the search for the suspect?

CUEVAS: They will continue combing through the rubble. They have been looking inside the garage, they've been looking underneath his car, they've been looking -- the upstairs portion was pretty much all gone. So they are doing an exhaustive search, still thinking that he never had a chance to leave the house. There were a lot of eyes on the home, media, police, the neighborhood was surrounded, so nobody saw him leave.

So at this point, they do believe that he is inside, and they will continue looking through there, making sure that no stone is left unturned.

SAVIDGE: CNN's Hena Cuevas, thank you very much for that update.

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