Deputies Shoot 3 Men in Separate Weekend Incidents : Law enforcement: Witnesses dispute officials’ account in one incident and a suspect was found to be unarmed in another.

Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies shot and wounded three men in separate incidents since the beginning of the Memorial Day weekend while a fourth man died Sunday from apparent self-inflicted wounds while in the custody of deputies, a department spokesman said.

Two of the shootings involved deputies from the Lynwood substation, who believed they were in danger of being fired upon, a sheriff’s spokesman said. One man was found to be unarmed, but deputies said the other carried a handgun, although witnesses disputed the deputies’ account.

In the third incident, a Norwalk man was shot by deputies after he allegedly fired a shotgun at their passing patrol car, the spokesman said.

In an incident late Saturday, a deputy shot and seriously wounded Elzie Coleman after he allegedly pulled a handgun out of his belt while fleeing the officers on Antwerp Street in the Willowbrook section of Los Angeles.

Coleman, 26, was walking along the street at 11:45 p.m. when deputies, believing him to be a suspect in an earlier shooting, asked him to stop, according to Deputy Gabe Ramirez, a department spokesman.

“He immediately ran, and a deputy pursued on foot,” Ramirez said. “During the pursuit, Coleman reached into his waistband and pulled out a semiautomatic pistol, which he pointed at the deputy.”

But residents along Antwerp Street insisted Sunday that Coleman was an innocent bystander who was on his way to a grocery store after having spent the evening with relatives.

“They (the deputies) just jumped out and started shooting,” said Keith Robinson, 26, a park maintenance worker. “That’s the way they do around here.”

Tommy Jackson, a postal worker who lives on the block, said that he was standing on the sidewalk when a patrol car came to an “abrupt stop” in the 11800 block of Antwerp Street, where the shooting occurred. “One of them jumped out of the car with his gun in his hand and gave pursuit (to Coleman),” Jackson said. “As he (Coleman) got to the driveway, the officer started shooting.”

Residents pointed to what they said were six bullet holes that had penetrated the wall of a carport, a drainage pipe and a garage door. There were also more than a dozen chalk markings where witnesses said sheriff’s investigators had found spent shell casings.

Jackson said that the deputy, whose name was not disclosed by the department, fired freely as he chased Coleman into a dead-end walkway, where the shooting victim’s house is located.

“The officer was actually putting another clip into his gun when I shouted at him, ‘Hey, officer! The man is down!’ ” Jackson recalled. “Then he (the deputy) starts saying, ‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry.’ ” At that point, Coleman was prone on the ground, Jackson said.

Deputies said they found a Beretta .380-caliber semiautomatic handgun “at the scene.” But Jackson and others denied that Coleman had been armed.

Coleman, who has been charged with assault on an officer, was in serious condition at Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center. Family members said that he had been shot six times in various parts of his body. Deputies said they did not say how many times Coleman had been shot.

The Coleman family said Sunday that they were being represented by attorney Gary Casselman, a member of the Police Misconduct Lawyers Referral Service, a California State Bar Assn.-chartered organization that handles excessive-force cases. Casselman said that he would file suit against the Sheriff’s Department seeking damages.

The Times reported Sunday that there have been 151 excessive-force lawsuits filed against the Sheriff’s Department in the last year. Over a three-year period ending last September, such cases cost the county $8.5 million in jury settlements and awards.

In an earlier incident, deputies from the Operation Safe Streets anti-gang unit said they saw Tracy Batts, 24, riding in a car Friday night on a Compton street. Batts was wanted in a shooting last October, in which a patrol car was hit by gunshots.

The deputies chased the car to Washington Avenue, where it crashed into a parked motor home. The driver of the car fled, but Batts emerged from the car with a semiautomatic pistol, sheriff’s spokesman Ramirez said. He ran to a yard between Washington Avenue and Atlantic Drive, where deputies found him hiding between a garage and a back wall, Ramirez said.

The deputies ordered Batts to come out with his hands up, the spokesman said.

“He stayed seated and raised his left hand only,” Ramirez said. “He turned toward the deputies, concealing his right arm.” One officer, thinking that Batts was going to shoot at him, fired once, hitting Batts in the right leg, Ramirez said.

Deputies said that they did not find a gun on or near Batts, but he was booked on suspicion of attempted murder of a police officer. He was taken to the jail ward at County-USC Medical Center.

Later Friday night, deputies riding in a patrol car in Norwalk were fired upon by a man with a shotgun, Ramirez said. “One of the deputies returned the fire, wounding the suspect in the left leg,” Ramirez said.

Jose Luis Martinez, 35, was treated at Norwalk Community Hospital. He was arrested on suspicion of attempted murder of a police officer and was being held without bail at the Central Jail.

In another incident, deputies from the West Hollywood substation responded to a report late Saturday that a man was indecently exposing himself at a building on Rugby Drive. They found an unidentified man in his 30s, who was bleeding from both wrists, Ramirez said.

Ramirez said the man attacked the deputies, who bound his legs with rope and handcuffed him while he was being taken in an ambulance to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. The man stopped breathing en route to the hospital, where he was declared dead early Sunday.