Man killed, 2 officers hurt in El Segundo theater shootout
Injuries to police aren't life-threatening but both are hospitalized. Authorities say the suspect pulled a gun while being searched at Pacific Theatres multiplex.
A dispute at an El Segundo movie theater late Friday sparked a shootout that left two police oficers wounded, one critically, and the suspect dead, Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department spokesmen said in a statement late this morning.
Neither of the officers had life-threatening injuries, but both remain hospitalized today, sheriff's officials said.
The identities of the three shooting victims have not been made public.
El Segundo police: An article in Sunday's California section about the shooting injuries of two El Segundo police officers at a movie theater said the shootings Friday night were the first of officers in that department since 1957. They were not. El Segundo Officer Chris Barrett was shot and paralyzed in May 1979 while responding to a disturbance at a bar, Sgt. Jaime Bermudez said Sunday.
The shootout occurred at about 10:15 p.m. at the Pacific Theatres' Beach Cities Stadium 16 on Nash Street.
In the first detailed accounting of the event, the Sheriff's Department statement traced the shootings to a dispute between a man and theater employees. Two on-duty El Segundo Police Department officers at the theater were contacted by another employee. After the officers approached the suspect, they began searching him, officials said.
"During [the] pat-down search he produced a handgun and began shooting. The officers were both struck by gunfire but were able to return fire striking the suspect," the statement said.
The suspect was pronounced dead at the scene; one officer was critically injured in the jaw and the other was shot in the torso.
El Segundo police referred media calls to the Sheriff's Department, which is investigating the shooting because the city police have no homicide division, a sheriff's spokesman said.
Deborah.schoch@latimes.com
