National City

A 25-year-old man who was shot Monday after reportedly confronting police with a hammer outside a grocery store remained in critical condition Tuesday.

Michael Carter, address unknown, was being treated at Mercy Hospital for multiple gunshot wounds.

According to police, Carter was “acting agitated and hostile” as he waited outside the Ralphs store on South Euclid Avenue with a large claw hammer tucked into the back of his pants at about 5:50 p.m.

Police had received a call of a man with a gun in the store’s parking lot, a police spokesman said.

Carter told police he was waiting to confront a customer with whom he had argued earlier in the store when Officer Mike King approached at 5:55 p.m., the spokesman said.

King saw the hammer’s handle sticking from Carter’s pants and thinking it was the butt of a gun, King told him twice to freeze. Police said that Carter reached for the hammer and that King fired several shots, hitting him in the torso and legs.

Carter later told police that he had heared King’s warnings to freeze but reached for the hammer anyway, the Police Department spokesman said.

King has been put on routine paid administrative leave pending completion of the investigation, the spokesman said.

The store was crowded, but no other injuries occurred. No charges have been filed against Carter pending the investigation’s outcome.