LOS ANGELES — One officer was killed and a second injured in a shootout with a gang member who was wounded in a Monday morning altercation in Whittier, authorities said.
Two Whittier Police Department officers responding to the scene of a traffic collision were getting out of their vehicle about 8 a.m. when a gang member driving a stolen car opened fire with a semiautomatic pistol, said Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department Lt. John Corina.
The two officers were taken to UC Irvine Medical Center, where one officer was pronounced dead, Corina said. The other is wounded officer is in stable condition.
The wounded suspect is a gang member who is known to police, Corina said. He was taken to County-USC Medical Center and his condition is unknown.
The suspect had been involved in a traffic accident with another vehicle near Colima Road and Mar Vista Street, and approached the driver he had rear-ended to help push his silver car off to the side of the road around the corner.
One officer was killed and a second injured in a shootout with a gang member who was wounded, authorities said.
When officers arrived, the driver that was struck pointed them to the location of the other vehicle, where they encountered the heavily tattooed suspect.
“He started firing at the officers and they returned fire," Corina said. “We are still looking into that why he just opened fire.”
Emergency responders at the scene performed CPR on a male officer while wheeling him into an ambulance, said Brian Feinzimer, a freelance photojournalist who was at the scene as authorities responded Monday morning.
Also visible in the eastbound lanes of Mar Vista Street east of Colima Road was a Whittier police SUV with shattered windows and a suspect who was handcuffed face down on the pavement, Feinzimer said.
The Whittier Police Department has about 128 sworn officers that police the cities of Whittier and Santa Fe Springs in southeastern Los Angeles County.
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