Police Assaults

An alleged Whittier gang member wanted in an attack on two Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies nearly nine years ago has been arrested in Mexico, authorities announced Monday. Emigdio Preciado Jr., who had been listed as one of the FBI's 10 most wanted, was arrested Friday night in the rural town of Corral Piedras, officials said. The community is in Nayarit state, along Mexico's central coast. He was arrested by Mexican federal police after a tip by U.S. authorities.

A teenager who witnessed his friend being fatally shot by a Los Angeles motorcycle officer offered a dramatically different account of the encounter than police Friday, saying the man was killed while trying to surrender and wasn't carrying anything in his hands. A police official overseeing the shooting investigation confirmed that the teenager gave investigators a similar account, but said detectives believe he is lying.

A man who went overboard during a party cruise in San Diego Bay was killed by police Saturday night after he attacked the officers who had tried to rescue him, police said today. Police said the man was on the cruise with at least 800 other people when he somehow ended up in the water after 11 p.m. He was identified today as Steven Paul Hirschfield, 37, of Los Angeles.

A Long Beach police officer on Wednesday shot and wounded an off-duty Los Angeles police officer who allegedly brandished a shotgun and ignored officers' orders to drop the weapon. Jason Geggie, 26, an LAPD officer for 1 1/2 years and the son of an LAPD lieutenant, was shot in the arm and torso after he tried to flee Long Beach officers and then refused to surrender, Long Beach police officials said.

A Los Angeles police officer was shot in the thigh Friday night by a man who also was wounded, authorities said. The officer was following up on the man, accused a day earlier of assault with a deadly weapon, when the shooting occurred in the 14300 block of Nordhoff Street in Panorama City, according to LAPD spokesman Jason Lee. The assailant shot the officer, then was wounded in the arm when police returned fire, Lee said. The man and an alleged accomplice were arrested at the scene.

A man who was handcuffed by police during an early morning arrest Monday in the Westlake district of Los Angeles managed to reach for a gun hidden in his pants and opened fire, seriously wounding a veteran officer, according to several LAPD sources familiar with the investigation. Rampart Division training officer Andy Taylor, 37, was rushed by ambulance to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, where he was treated for a gunshot wound to the shoulder and chest.

Riverside County sheriff's deputies shot and killed a suspected drunk driver late Tuesday as he allegedly accelerated toward them after a brief chase, authorities said. Deputies tried to stop the man about 11:20 p.m. after he drove onto a curb and ran a red light and a stop sign in Home Gardens, an unincorporated community near Corona, according to sheriff's investigator Jerry Franchville.

A Garden Grove police officer shot and killed a man who lunged at officers with a sledgehammer after leading them on a chase through a residential neighborhood Saturday, authorities said. Police were called to Twin Lakes Park near Lampson Avenue and Haster Street about 12:46 p.m. after a caller reported a man "acting strangely," said Lt. David Kivler. When an officer approached the man, whose name and age were not released, he thrust his hands into his waistband and started yelling, Kivler said.

The streets of Los Angeles are becoming more dangerous for city traffic officers. Appalled by a growing increase in assaults against the 550 civilian employees who write parking tickets and direct traffic, city officials Monday endorsed state legislation to increase penalties for attackers. Last week in Hollywood, for example, someone took a baseball bat to the windshield of a traffic enforcement officer's vehicle. Three other cars had their tires slashed.

A man was arrested on suspicion of attempting to run down at least two police officers with the car he had been napping in at an apartment complex, authorities said Saturday. Police were called to the Newport Village complex in the 600 block of Baker Street about 6:30 p.m. Friday by a manager who said that the man, who was not a resident of the complex, had been regularly sleeping there.