Man takes officer’s gun, opens fire inside Los Angeles police station

LOS ANGELES >> A Los Angeles Police Department officer suffered minor injuries during an altercation in a police station with a man who wrestled away the officer’s gun, fired it and then ran when another officer shot at him, authorities said.

The suspect, who was not wounded, got into a vehicle and drove off, police said. Officers stopped him a short distance away and he was arrested.

The injured officer was hospitalized with what Chief Michel Moore described as bumps and bruises.

“He is resting and will be ok,” Moore tweeted early today.

The incident inside the Harbor Station in the Sen Pedro area of Los Angeles unfolded late Saturday night. The suspect walked into the lobby and an officer came out to talk with him.

“It escalated into some type of altercation,” Moore said at a news conference outside the hospital where the officer was being treated. “During that altercation, it appears at this very early stage that the officer’s weapon was taken from him and rounds were fired by the individual at the officer.”

Assistant Police Chief Horace Frank told the Los Angeles Times the watch commander at the station heard noises and saw that the suspect had taken the officer’s gun and was hitting him. The watch commander then fired at the suspect, Frank said.

The suspect was not identified. Moore said he was about 29 years old.

The incident came two weeks after two Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department deputies were ambushed as they sat in their police vehicle in Compton, about 15 miles north of San Pedro. The officers suffered serious gunshot wounds but both have been released from the hospital. The gunman has not been arrested.