Local News in Brief : Officer Shoots Driver After Being Hit

A Los Angeles police detective assigned to the department’s Special Investigations Section shot and wounded an 18-year-old Chatsworth man after he ignored an order to stop and hit the officer with a stolen car, police said Tuesday.

Detective Charles Bennett, 32, shot Eric Galuppo in the left arm Monday in the 10600 block of Variel Avenue, investigators said. Bennett fired four shots when Galuppo accelerated the car and struck the officer with the front fender, police said.

Bennett did not require medical care. Galuppo, who was captured after a helicopter chase, was in stable condition at Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center, where was booked into the jail ward on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon on a peace officer.

Police said two juveniles from Duarte and Rennald Munoz, 19, of Chatsworth, also were arrested on suspicion of auto theft. Detectives began watching the four Monday evening after learning that the teen-agers were suspected in a series of armed robberies and car thefts in the San Fernando and San Gabriel valleys.

The SIS squad became embroiled in controversy last year after a report in The Times revealed that the unit sometimes watched dangerous criminals commit violent crimes before arresting them, and that the unit’s arrests resulted in a high number of officer-involved shootings.