A Boyle Heights gun battle between Los Angeles police officers and a group of drug suspects Thursday left a narcotics detective wounded and a suspect dead.
The detective, a 14-year veteran, suffered a non-life-threatening injury to one leg, but escaped a potentially deadly wound to his head when a bullet ricocheted off his helmet, authorities said.
The firefight occurred about 3 p.m. when officers from the Los Angeles Police Department's Hollenbeck Division gang enforcement team, assisted by narcotics detectives, attempted to serve a search warrant at a residential building in the 2500 block of Malabar Street.
At least 30 residents were told to evacuate the area as two to four suspects were holed up inside the building.
When officers began forcing their way through the door, the suspects opened fire, said Police Chief William J. Bratton. The officers returned fire.
At least two suspects were taken into custody shortly after the gunfight, although tensions remained high for several hours as SWAT officers and LAPD commanders tried to determine if additional suspects remained inside the building, possibly laying in wait for officers.
The standoff was finally resolved shortly after 7 p.m. when police used a robot equipped with a camera to investigate the interior of the building.
When the robot failed to detect any movement, SWAT officers entered the building. They discovered one dead suspect with numerous gunshot wounds, several handguns and a quantity of what police described only as narcotics.
At a news conference Thursday night, LAPD Deputy Chief Sergio Diaz said that the wounded detective was recovering at a hospital and that he was "in good spirits" and "his loved ones are with him."
Authorities did not name the detective, although they did say that his wife also is a Los Angeles police officer.
To demonstrate the injured officer's close brush with death, Diaz held up a black, Kevlar military-style helmet he was wearing at the time of the raid. A chalky smudge on the front of the helmet revealed exactly where a bullet had struck the officer and ricocheted off.
"He survived a head wound because he was wearing a ballistic helmet," Diaz said.
He said the officers, who were serving the warrant on a suspect who allegedly had been victimizing people in the neighborhood, had been prepared for the "high likelihood of coming under fire" because of the suspect's "history."
