A young man who had been looking into parked vehicles was hospitalized Thursday with wounds inflicted by an off-duty sheriff’s deputy in a parking structure near the Whittier Courthouse, while a second suspect was being sought.
The shooting occurred at 4:09 p.m. Wednesday in the 7300 block of Painter Avenue, near Mar Vista Street, according to Deputy Eric Ortiz of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. The deputy was assigned to the Whittier Courthouse but was not working and not in uniform at the time of the shooting.
He was walking to his vehicle inside the parking structure when “he observed two individuals looking into windows of parked vehicles including his own and he confronted the individuals as to what they were doing in the parking structure,” Ortiz said.
One of the men allegedly advanced toward the deputy, who then identified himself as an off-duty deputy, according to Ortiz.
“The suspect reached for his waistband as if he was going to retrieve a weapon and continued to advance on the deputy,” Ortiz said.
The deputy shot the man, striking him in his upper body, according to Ortiz. He was taken to a hospital where his vital signs were listed as stable.
A knife was recovered at the scene, and the second suspect, who left after the shooting, is outstanding, Ortiz said. A full description was not released, but he is believed to be white or Hispanic and about 20 years old. The man who was shot was white and about 20.
No one else was hurt.