Drug Suspect Wounded During Arrest

A man wanted as a drug trafficking suspect was wounded in the head when an off-duty Los Angeles County deputy sheriff accidentally fired his gun while arresting the man in Santa Ana, authorities said. A sheriff’s spokesman said Thomas Lee Johnson, 38, was hit by a bullet fragment after he had been ordered to lie on the ground by Deputy Robert Alcaraz, 34, a member of the sheriff’s special weapons team. While getting into his car, Alcaraz accidentally “struck his own hand” holding his 9-millimeter handgun and the gun discharged into the ground, the spokesman said. Alcaraz drove Johnson to St. Joseph Hospital in Orange, where Johnson was reported to be in “fair to good” condition. Johnson was wanted for possession of PCP with intent to sell, the sheriff’s spokesman said. Alcaraz, on his way home from work, had spotted Johnson’s car weaving on the Santa Ana Freeway near La Mirada, and followed it to a gas station in Santa Ana.