Shoot-Out in Lennox Injures Two Deputies

A federal drug investigation was in progress, the man sitting at the wheel of the official-looking Chevy in the early Sunday dark told the two Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms had everything under control.

But moments later, when a shotgun blast tore through a front window of the neat stucco home on the quiet Lennox street, the deputies quickly realized that they were the only real lawmen in the neighborhood.

When the shooting stopped, the two deputies were slightly wounded and three men and a woman were in custody, arrested on suspicion of attempted murder. Two of four people who had been inside the house before the incident began had been pistol-whipped, but were not seriously hurt.

Attempted Drug Theft Suspected

The Sheriff’s Department believes that the deputies, responding to a report of a fight in the house at 10935 Condon Ave., interrupted the four bogus federal agents as they were attempting to steal drugs they believed were in the house. Some of the suspects wore blue jump suits and black baseball caps emblazoned with the “ATF” insignia, deputies said.

No drugs were found on the suspects after their arrests, said sheriff’s spokesman Deputy Sam Jones. A thorough search of the house was delayed until deputies could obtain a warrant, he said.

“A lot of gunfire was exchanged,” said Sheriff’s Lt. Richard N. Walls, as he pointed out the blood of Deputy Wayne Liberator, 25, which was spattered on the sidewalk and street in front of the house.

Liberator, who was struck in the face by three shotgun pellets, was treated at Daniel Freeman Memorial Hospital in Inglewood and released, as was Deputy Andrew Lee, 28, who was hit with wood splinters and other debris dislodged by another shotgun blast.

The incident, which began about 3 a.m., awoke and frightened residents of the neighborhood, which lies east of Los Angeles International Airport.

“It seemed like an earthquake. It shook the house up,” Sylvia Bautista, 20, said of the barrage of gunfire. From her vantage point two houses away, Bautista said, she watched as arriving deputies ran for cover. “It was horrifying,” she said.

“My boyfriend woke me and told me to get down,” said Stacey Connolly, 18, who was sleeping on a couch in the front room of a home across the street. “Then I saw the cops with their guns out telling everybody to stay in their houses.”

Persuaded to Surrender

The two wounded deputies put out a call for help, and arriving deputies arrested the man in the car and surrounded the house. About 15 minutes after the first shotgun blast, deputies persuaded the three suspects who remained inside to toss their weapons onto the front porch and surrender. The four were taken to the Lennox Sheriff’s station.

Members of a special weapons and tactics team kept vigil outside the home until daybreak, believing that more suspects might be inside. Then deputies lobbed tear gas canisters into the dwelling and searched it, but found no one, investigators said.

The owners of the home, identified through real estate records as Joseph F. and Myra J. Argostino, were out of town, neighbors said. Joseph Argostino’s sister was house-sitting, deputies confirmed. Two men and a woman were visiting her when the phony agents burst inside, investigators said. The Sheriff’s Department did not release their names, or indicate who had been beaten by the four suspects.

Jones said it is possible that the phony agents entered the Argostino home mistakenly.

“It could very well have been the wrong house,” the deputy said. “We just don’t know.”

The four suspects were identified as Gregory Scott Anderson, 23; Cynthia Lewis, 27; Richard Navarro, 41, and Richard Valles, 23. Their home addresses were not immediately available.

Investigators for the Sheriff’s Homicide Division, which looks into all shootings in which deputies are injured, were trying to determine if the “agents” had stolen either the white Chevrolet in which they arrived or the official government license plates affixed to it, Jones said.