Off-duty California sheriff's deputy is shot dead

PETALUMA, Calif. – Authorities say an off-duty Northern California deputy was shot and killed while intervening in a domestic dispute involving a friend.

Forty-nine-year-old Jim Mathiesen was shot early Tuesday in Petaluma.

Authorities say he had been called to the home of a friend who was threatened by her ex-boyfriend, 28-year-old Thomas Halloran.

Sonoma County Assistant Sheriff Lorenzo Duenas says Halloran shot Mathiesen twice in the chest when Mathiesen tried to get him to leave the home. The deputy was apparently unarmed.

Duenas says Halloran then briefly took a female resident of the home hostage before he was fatally shot by another person.

The names of the residents and Halloran's ex-girlfriend were not immediately released.

Mathiesen was a nine-year veteran of the Marin County Sheriff's Department. He was assigned to the jail.