2 Held as Sting Becomes Shoot-Out : Crime: Suspect opens fire on undercover drug officers in a restaurant parking lot. No one was injured by the gunfire.

A sting operation by drug investigators early Saturday morning suddenly turned violent, as a suspect and an undercover police officer exchanged gunfire in the parking lot of a restaurant.

No one was reported injured in the 1:17 a.m. incident, which led to the arrests of two men, who gave police false names, Buena Park Police Lt. Tony Kelly said.

The undercover officers, working in an investigation of drug dealing in the city, had arranged to buy two kilos of cocaine from suspects Friday in the parking lot of a Spoons Grill & Bar restaurant on Beach Boulevard, Kelly said.

The meeting had been arranged through contacts made after police had bought a smaller amount of cocaine and heroin. That deal led to the arrests of three people, Kelly said.

“That bust led to the identities of other people, with whom we thought we were going to do another transaction,” Kelly said.

Undercover officers arrived at the restaurant shortly after midnight, Kelly said. As they stood in the parking lot, a 1985 Oldsmobile Cutlass with two men inside pulled up next to them.

“When they showed up, our officers thought it was going to be a simple drug transaction,” Kelly said.

But before any words were exchanged, he said, the driver of the car held up a pistol and began firing at the officers. One officer returned fire and hit a rear tire of the Oldsmobile.

As the car sped away on Beach Boulevard, police pursued, Kelly said. Officers eventually caught up to the car, which was slowed by the blown tire, at Beach and La Palma Avenue, where they arrested the suspects on suspicion of attempted murder. No drugs were found in the car.

A stolen .45-caliber handgun was believed tossed out of the car by the suspects during the pursuit, Kelly said.

The two men identified themselves as Fintono M. Gutierrez, 33, and Alberto O. Sierra, 32, both of Santa Ana, Kelly said. They are being held at Orange County Jail on $250,000 bail each.

Computer checks showed that the identities they gave do not match the two suspects, Kelly said.

“We discovered that they lied to us,” he said.

Police investigators are running fingerprint checks with the FBI and the Immigration and Naturalization Service to determine the identities of the suspects, who are Mexican nationals, Kelly said.

“We are just going to use those names for the time being,” he said.

The shooting could have erupted because drug dealers had identified the two buyers as undercover officers or because the officers were carrying a large amount of cash to buy drugs, Kelly said.

“It could simply be that robbery was the motive in this,” Kelly said.