VIDEO: Veteran LAPD Officer's Leg Shattered in Running Gun Battle
An LAPD SWAT officer was seriously wounded and a man was killed Monday morning in a “running gun battle” after a vehicle pursuit ended in the South-Central neighborhood of Los Angeles, authorities said. Another occupant of the vehicle was in custody.
The incident began about 2:20 a.m. when officers attempted to stop an SUV in the area of Manchester Avenue and the 110 Freeway. The vehicle accelerated, got onto the northbound side of the freeway and exited at Vernon Avenue, where the first of three exchanges of gunfire occurred, authorities said.
A passenger got out of the vehicle and fired rounds at officers, Los Angeles Police Department Cmdr. Andrew Smith told KTLA. He stressed the investigation was in preliminary stages.
The vehicle, which had Washington plates, then reentered the 110 Freeway, got off at Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and continued on surface streets to 37th and Hill streets, where the SUV crashed into a curb. There, another shooting took place between the officers and the occupants, who fled on foot, Smith said.
A K-9 unit later helped locate one of the men in a dumpster, authorities said. The 19-year-old was taken into custody after police used a flash-bang device and pepper-sprayed him.
At about 5:30 a.m., officers encountered the second man in the 3700 block of South Grand Avenue, where more gunfire was exchanged several blocks from USC. The suspect, a 37-year-old man, was fatally shot by police after he fired on officers, Smith said.
The man was identified as Andre Maurice Jones of Los Angeles, according to the county coroner’s office.
