LOS ANGELES (CNS) - A Los Angeles Police Department SWAT officer is hospitalized this morning with stable vital signs after being shot twice, including in the face, during a more than four-hour standoff about a mile north of USC with a 37-year-old man who was killed by police after he opened fire on officers.
A SWAT team and officers responded about 12:15 p.m. Tuesday to the 1000 block of West 21st Street, near Toberman Street, after reports of a man firing a rifle into the air in the backyard of a residence, according to Chief Michel Moore.
Officers at the scene spoke with the man's family members before evacuating them from the area and surrounding the residence.
Officers and family members attempted to persuade the man to surrender, but he refused. Police then deployed tear gas into the home in an attempt to force him to give up, Moore said.
The suspect opened fire on police about 4:45 p.m., striking a SWAT officer, who was able to walk to a nearby ambulance to be taken to a hospital, NBC4 reported.
The officer was shot once in the chest -- though the bullet was stopped by his vest -- and once in the face, according to Moore.
Police returned fire and the suspect was shot, Moore said.
The suspect, who was not immediately identified, was pronounced dead at the scene.
Moore visited the wounded officer, who said he was “grateful to be alive.''
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