Police May Have Shot One of Their Own During Chase

A Los Angeles police officer who was critically wounded while chasing four young men in a South Los Angeles neighborhood apparently was shot by other officers firing at one of the fleeing suspects, authorities said Thursday.

Samuel Ward, a 31-year-old patrol officer, suffered bullet wounds to his back and right leg Wednesday night while searching for a suspect in a back yard in the 8000 block of Towne Avenue, according to LAPD spokesman Cmdr. William Booth.

Ward was listed in critical condition Thursday at County-USC Medical Center after surgery that removed a bullet lodged near his spine. Hospital officials said they did not know if Ward, a 77th Street Division patrolman, would be paralyzed.

Booth said investigators swept the neighborhood with metal detectors and found no evidence that Ward was shot by any of the suspects, all of whom are in custody.

“We have not been able to locate any weapons,” Booth said. “The only shots we can confirm were shots fired by officers.”

He added, however, that investigators have not ruled out the possibility that one of the suspects shot Ward.

Police initially believed Ward had been shot by Darrin Davis, 20, a suspect who himself was wounded by police gunfire, according to Officer Neadie Moore, a police spokeswoman. Davis was treated at Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center for two gunshot wounds in the upper thigh and was then turned over to police.

The four suspects were booked on suspicion of attempted murder of a peace officer, Moore said.

Moore identified the other suspects as Johnny Jacko, 19; Jason Johnson, 18, and Johnson’s 16-year-old brother, whose name was withheld because he is a minor.

The incident began at 7:45 p.m. Wednesday when officers from the Southeast Division tried to stop the suspects’ yellow Oldsmobile Cutlass for an alleged speeding violation on the northbound Harbor Freeway, Moore said.

“When the officers attempted to stop the Oldsmobile, the driver accelerated to about 100 m.p.h. and turned out his lights,” Moore said, adding that an LAPD helicopter joined the pursuit.

After the Oldsmobile left the freeway at Manchester Avenue, Booth said, it crashed into a parked car in the 400 block of East 81st Street and the suspects fled on foot.

Neighbors who claimed they watched the car careen down 81st Street said two of the suspects leaped out just before the Oldsmobile hit the parked car. The remaining two fled after the crash. The neighbors also insisted they did not see the men carrying weapons.

After the crash, Booth said, Ward and several other officers from the 77th Street Division arrived and joined in the search for the suspects.

Officers arrested Jacko, Johnson and the 16-year-old shortly after the search began.

But Davis sprinted down an alley on Towne Avenue near 81st Street and scrambled up a wooden fence, said Moore.

As Ward and his partner, Sgt. Michael O’Donnell, approached Davis from one side, two other officers saw the suspect and ordered him to surrender.

Police spokesman said that when Davis motioned as if he had a gun, Raichel and Kaleinick fired four shots each from their 9-millimeter pistols. About the same time, Ward was shot as he was approaching Davis.

Thinking the suspect had shot his partner, O’Donnell fired at Davis but missed, Moore said. Davis then jumped the fence and darted behind an old trailer.

Police said the suspect was then confronted by another officer, Frank Mendoza, who fired three shots, hitting him twice.

“When Davis made a sudden turn in Officer Mendoza’s direction, the officer, believing that the suspect was going to shoot him, fired three rounds at Davis,” said Moore.

The official police account of the incident, however, conflicted at times with a version given to 77th Street Division officers at roll call Thursday morning, according to an officer who attended the meeting.

The officer, who asked not to be identified, told The Times that Ward’s colleagues were informed by supervisors that much of the confusion at the shooting scene arose because the officers from the 77th Street and Southeast stations were on different radio frequencies and could not communicate with each other.

At the roll call, he said, supervisors said that Ward’s partner had to “shoot his way out of the yard” in order to get himself and the wounded officer out of the line of fire. In doing so, he added, O’Donnell fired two shots, not knowing at whom he was shooting.

Booth disagreed with the statements given by the unidentified officer, calling them “rumors.”

Times staff writer Andrea Ford contributed to this story.