Police arrested one man, detained two females, and searched in vain for a second man in a Whittier neighborhood after a traffic stop escalated into a non-injury officer-involved shooting, a police spokesman said.
The incident began when a Whittier patrol officer pulled over a vehicle just before midnight Monday in the 12700 block of Whittier Boulevard near Greenleaf Avenue, said Whittier Police spokesman Officer John Scoggins.
“As the officer approached the car, the front passenger got out of the car and pointed a gun at the officer but did not immediately fire,” Scoggins said. “The officer, fearing for his life, fired at least two rounds at the suspect with the gun.”
The two men in the car, the driver and the front passenger, both fled the scene on foot.
“Witnesses told police that one of the men returned fire at the officer while he (the suspect) was running away, shooting at least two rounds,” Scoggins said.
One of the men was arrested shortly afterward, but the other man remained at large, Scoggins said. Scoggins said police set up a perimeter and brought in K-9 units to hunt for the man, but he was not found. The arrested man’s name was not immediately released.
Scoggins also said police don’t yet know if the suspect they detained is the driver or the passenger. There were also two females in the car, one adult and one juvenile.
“They are being detained and interviewed by detectives,” Scoggins added. “We don’t yet know what their relationships are to the two men in the vehicle.”
Officers searched the campus of Evergreen Elementary School overnight, delaying the start of the school day briefly before the grounds were declared safe, Scoggins said.
—City News Service