By Eric Licas, Quinn Wilson
Los Angeles Daily News
LOS ANGELES — Gunfire broke out during a traffic stop in the Studio City area on Monday evening, June 13, striking one California Highway Patrol officer who was rushed to a hospital. The crime scene is in the San Fernando Valley region including North Hollywood and Valley Village.
The wounded officer had pulled over a vehicle stopped on Laurel Canyon Boulevard, just south of the 101 Freeway, at 7:55 p.m., CHP Officer Moises Marroquin said. Further information about what led up to the shooting was not immediately available. The officer’s injuries were described as “critical,” Los Angeles Fire Department spokesman Nicholas Prange said.
No arrest was immediately announced. KCAL9 reported police investigating the shooting were searching for a white Ford Fusion with Oregon plates.
The Los Angeles Police Department was establishing a perimeter in the area of Haskell Avenue and Cohasset Street in Van Nuys around 9 p.m. possibly related to the suspect’s car being located in the area, according to Officer Drake Madison, spokesman for the LAPD.
Police at that scene advised that an armed suspect may still be in the area and that multiple nearby apartment complexes had been evacuated. K-9 units were also present at the scene.
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Reports from the scene Tuesday morning said police fired tear gas into an apartment in an effort to apprehend the suspect. It was not immediately known if the suspect was located or in custody.
At the scene where the CHP officer was shot, Los Angeles residents Carly Coleman and June Honore-Ortiz told news service OC Hawk they witnessed the events that led to the shooting as they sat in their car nearby on Laurel Canyon Boulevard.
Coleman said a CHP officer attempted to make a traffic stop coming off of the 101 Freeway, but the vehicle they were following was not stopping. The car then yielded near the entrance of Campbell Hall, a private K-12 school at 4533 Laurel Canyon Blvd., and a traffic stop ensued, Coleman said.
About five to 10 minutes later, about “four or five” gunshots rang out and a large number of law enforcement officers soon flocked to the scene, Honore-Ortiz said.
The pair described the scene as “chaotic.”
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