Officer Wounded in Shoot-Out in Raid on House

A Bell Gardens police sergeant who was shot when officers tried to search a house for drugs said Saturday he feels lucky to be alive.

Detective Sgt. Ronald Kunkle, 40, and five officers were about to enter a house in Maywood about 8:40 p.m. Friday when gunfire came from the house.

Kunkle, a 14-year veteran in charge of special investigations for the Bell Gardens police, said he was about 30 feet from the house in the 4400 block of East 56th Street when he felt a burning sensation in his shoulder. “I saw my pant leg jump, and almost immediately after that my shoulder started burning,” Kunkle said in a telephone interview from Rio Hondo Hospital in Downey. “I stuck my hand inside the vest, and I saw the blood, and I told the other guys I’d been hit.”

After a six-hour standoff, members of the sheriff’s Special Weapons Team rushed the house about 2:30 a.m. and arrested 23-year-old Robert Hernandez on suspicion of attempted murder, sheriff’s spokesman Pete Fosselman said.

They entered the residence after more than 20 tear gas canisters and several “flash-bang” grenades failed to dislodge the suspect, Fosselman said.

Deputies found Hernandez unarmed in the attic, bleeding from a bullet wound in the abdomen. Investigators, who believe that Hernandez was wounded in the initial exchange of gunfire, found a shotgun in the house, Fosselman said.

Hernandez was in satisfactory condition Saturday at County-USC Medical Center jail ward. Kunkle, who suffered wounds to his right shoulder and lower right leg, was in good condition at Rio Hondo Hospital after being transferred from County-USC Medical Center, where doctors had removed a bullet from near his spine.

Authorities said Friday night that gunfire started as police knocked on the door and asked for the suspect by name. Kunkle said he doesn’t remember whether they called the suspect’s name.

“We were trying to make entry when the shots came out of the house,” he said. “We had no information that led us to believe that this guy would engage us in gunfire.”

Police returned fire, then withdrew and requested help. Paramedics treated Kunkle outside the residence before taking him to the medical center.

Police did not say whether any narcotics were found in the house, nor was it certain whether Kunkle was wounded by the suspect or by fellow officers during the rapid exchange of shots. Kunkle declined to talk about that.