• Share your thoughts and memories about Deputy Joel Wahlenmaier

3:50 p.m.: SWAT officers found a handgun next to Rick Liles' head, Fresno Police Chief Jerry Dyer said.

Six handguns and four rifles were found inside the mobile home. Dyer said two of those rifles were used in the shootout.

3:35 p.m.: Reedley police officer Javier Bejar was shot about 30 minutes into the gun battle, Dyer said. Bejar was positioned behind a patrol vehicle about 80 yards southeast of the mobile home, said Dyer, who added that Bejar is "not expected to survive."

3:33 p.m.: Rick Liles had told Diane Liles recently that he would "take out" officers before he went back to prison, Fresno Police Chief Jerry Dyer said.

Rick Liles had become increasingly paranoid of late and would look out the window of his home to see if there was anyone outside, Liles' wife told investigators, according to Dyer.

3:15 p.m.: Law-enforcement officers braved gunfire in an effort to rescue Deputy Joel Wahlenmaier after he was felled by a rifle bullet, Fresno Police Chief Jerry Dyer said today.

Wahlenmaier was initially shot by gunman Rick Liles and lay within a patio area near Liles' mobile home in Minkler, Dyer said.

Dyer, in a news conference this afternoon, said Wahlenmaier was placed in the back of a squad car at the scene of Thursday's shooting. An ambulance met the car parkway and completed the transport to Community Regional Medical Center, where Wahlenmaier was pronounced dead.

At least 535 bullet holes -- entering and exiting -- were found in the mobile home in which shooter Rick Liles holed up and fired at the hundreds of law-enforcement officers who responded to the original shooting, Fresno Police Chief Jerry Dyer said. Law officers fired at least 400 rounds into the trailer during the gun battle, Dyer said.

After SWAT teams were deployed, an Army rescue vehicle was used to draw near the trailer and rescue several officers who had been pinned down, Dyer said. After initial negotiations, Diane Liles, 42, came out of the trailer and was taken into custody, Dyer said. She told SWAT team members she believed her husband was dead inside. His body was found face-down in a bedroom, a handgun next to his head.

2:45 p.m.: A Joel Wahlenmaier Family Memorial Fund has been established. People can send contributions in care of the Fresno Deputy Sheriff’s Association, 1360 Van Ness Ave., Fresno, CA 93721.

1:28 p.m.: When Joel Wahlenmaier left for work Thursday, he told his wife matter-of-factly that he would be assisting in serving a warrant in Minkler. It was not something he seemed overly concerned about, said Barbie Turner, his sister-in law.

"So she knew about it," she said. "He left that morning, told her he loved her and that was it."

Within a few hours, Wahlenmaier was dead, shot in an ambush by a gunman suspected of arson and a Monday night shooting that grazed a neighbor.

The gunman, believed to be Ricky Liles, 51, also shot a Reedley police officer and injured a second sheriff's deputy Thursday before taking his own life.

Wahlenmaier, 49, was a 12-year veteran of the Fresno County Sheriff's Office, a job Turner said "he loved."

"You could just tell when he talked about it or when he saw one of his deputy friends," she said. "He was close with everyone he worked with."

But the work he did, which included homicide investigations, such as the killing of a Kerman couple in their home last summer, always remained at the office, she said.