The woman involved in an exchange of gunfire with deputies that resulted in a man being killed last Tuesday has died in a Palm Springs hospital. According to Riverside County Coroner’s Sergeant Brent Sechrist, Tani Garcia, 39, of Yucca valley died at 1:55 Sunday morning in the emergency room at Desert Hospital. Garcia’s friends told Z107.7 News that early Sunday morning she was having trouble breathing and 9-1-1 was called. She was taken by ambulance to Desert Hospital where she subsequently passed away.
Shortly before 3:30 a.m., Tuesday, January 17, deputies responded to Motel 6 in Twentynine Palms to investigate a call about a man with a gun. Deputies couldn’t find the reported armed man and went to the guest’s room and knocked on the door. A gun was shot from inside the motel room and the door flung open, exposing the gunman, Dominic Hodges, 39, of Yucca Valley. There was an exchange of gunfire with two deputies before Hodges slammed the door. Deputies ordered Hodges to come out with his hands up; he didn’t respond. During negotiations, Garcia came out of the room and told deputies she and Hodges had been awake for days after smoking methamphetamine. She told deputies Hodges was wounded but still alive. SWAT sent a robot with a camera into the room and Dominic Hodges was located inside the room dead. Garcia was booked into Morongo Basin Jail for suspicion of being under the influence of a controlled substance cited and released Tuesday evening.
The Riverside County Coroner’s office is conducting an autopsy on Tani Garcia’s body today. Sgt. Sechrist said toxicology tests would have to conducted before the exact cause of death could be determined.
