Officer Injured in Westside Shootout

A 33-year-old Los Angeles police officer was slightly wounded Thursday morning during a brief but furious gun battle with a man holed up in a stolen motor home parked on a quiet residential Westside street.

Three hours later, the ponytailed suspect was found dead inside the 18-foot-long vehicle. Authorities were unsure whether he was killed during the shootout or had turned the weapon on himself.

Police said the unidentified gunman, a 47-year-old Santa Monica man, had a criminal record that may have involved sex-related crimes with children, but they offered no further details. The mobile home was parked within a few blocks of two elementary schools and a school for handicapped students in the Mar Vista neighborhood.

The sudden morning gunplay scattered neighbors--including parents preparing their children for the first day of school--and gave others a rude awakening. Dozens of residents within several blocks of the scene were evacuated by police as shotgun-wielding SWAT team members moved in to try to flush out the suspect.

The gunfight erupted about 7:45 a.m. after two officers were alerted by a resident that the motor home had apparently been stolen from the caller’s friend a week earlier.

When the officers approached the vehicle in the 3900 block of Wasatch Avenue and opened the door, the suspect opened fire, police said.

Officer Darius Lee was grazed in the head. It was not immediately clear if he was wounded initially or while returning fire with another officer. In the ensuing shootout, residents reported hearing up to 50 shots, an estimate police said was plausible.

The incident was another example of the fact that increasing numbers of suspects have been “willing to shoot it out,” said Deputy Police Chief Martin Pomeroy.

Lee, a 10-year veteran, suffered a graze wound above his right eyebrow, officers said. He was admitted to UCLA Medical Center in fair condition.

He was visited Thursday morning by his family and Police Chief Bernard C. Parks. Officers said Lee graduated from the Police Academy in 1987, and only recently was assigned to the LAPD’s Pacific division.

“Apparently [Lee] has a good sense of humor because he said, ‘My head is a little harder than I thought,’ ” said LAPD spokesman Lt. Anthony Alba.

The shootout “was wild, like the Fourth of July,” said neighbor Carla Kallan. “There was a continuation of shots. They went pop, pop, pop, pop, pop. It was pretty scary.”

Neighbor Ron Johnson said the gunfire drove one man from his pickup truck and caused a newspaper delivery woman to sit in the middle of the street in her car and “scream her head off” before she wheeled the car around and sped off.

Early in the incident, SWAT team members moved from one house to another, fearing there might be another gunman and urging residents to leave. Robert Alexander, 60, decided to wait the situation out in his home. Still, he was unnerved by the gunshots and the armed officers searching his home.

“When the police come in and look your house over with shotguns and weapons, it’s a little scary,” he said.

Meanwhile, nervous parents dropped their children off to begin classes at the nearby Wildwood School and Grand View Boulevard Elementary School. All the while, they kept an eye on the sky, flinching from the noisy clatter of helicopters that hovered overhead.

Steve Barrager, principal at the James McBride Special Education Center, said administrators locked the gates to the front of the school and redirected traffic and buses to the rear.

“We unloaded students through a back door,” he said. “Basically, the kids are staying on a rainy-day schedule.”

Although the classroom are not air conditioned, the school’s 275 students--some with physical disabilities--were kept in rooms with the doors and windows closed, he said.

Seeing the nearby police blockades, many parents put their children back into their minivans and headed for home.

“No, no, no, I’m not leaving my child here at this school, not today,” Deanna Delapaz said as she loaded her son into her van. “I have a kindergartner, and this is his first day of school. I don’t want this to be his memory, to be hunkered down in fear. I want him home where it’s safe.”

Clarke Morrow, principal at Grand View Boulevard Elementary, said 90% of the school’s 900 students were in class, with outside recess delayed until the coast was clear.

As the morning progressed, SWAT team members hurried about the deserted streets near the standoff as restless residents complained about not being allowed to return to their homes.

“Come on, let’s get this over with. I need to put food out for my pet rabbit, Simon,” said Carla Kallan. “He’s old and he can’t take this kind of abuse.”

Not all the neighbors were so edgy. At one street corner, a 5-year-old girl played on a swing just inside a police blockade. Nearby, a man on a bicycle tried to duck underneath the yellow police tape.

One officer said: “Hey, don’t you know there’s a man with a gun in there?”

The rider answered: “I know, but I’m in a hurry.”

Two blocks away, wary officers moved in on the motor home.

About 10:30 a.m., three hours after the shooting started, police fired four tear gas canisters into the vehicle and waited for a response. Several minutes later, officers knocked out the side window with a sledgehammer and went inside.

At an 11 a.m. news briefing, Deputy Chief Pomeroy said SWAT team members found the suspect dead of a gunshot wound to the upper body.

Pomeroy said the man had a handgun and a rifle inside the camper but did not know which gun he had used during the attack.

Johnson said new neighbors just moved into his block a week ago and he wondered what they thought of the neighborhood now.

“Frankly,” he said, “I’m afraid to ask.”