A sniper opened fire at a Los Angeles County sheriff’s station on Wednesday afternoon, wounding a deputy and sending police SWAT teams hunting for a suspect on the loose in buildings nearby.
The deputy, Angel Reinosa, 21, was shot in the chest as he walked outside the Lancaster City, California, station at about 2:45pm, headed for his car, which was parked near the station’s helicopter landing pad.
However, body armor deflected the bullet, which grazed his shoulder, sheriff’s spokesman Marvin Crowder said.
Photo: AP
“We’re very fortunate that he is going to be all right, but this is a very, very dangerous situation,” Crowder said. “We have a gunman out there targeting law enforcement, but have no ID, no suspect description.”
At least two shots were fired, police said.
Police sources told the Los Angeles Times that the bullets came from a high-velocity rifle.
A police SWAT team searched a four-story apartment building near the station as a possible location for the shooter, they said.
No one had been taken into custody by early yesterday.
Lancaster Mayor R. Rex Paris told the newspaper that the shooting was incomprehensible in the southern California city of about 170,000 people, about 112km north of Los Angeles.
“He is walking out of the sheriff’s station, and a sniper took a shot at him,” Paris said.
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