Deputy Wounds Suspect in Car Theft Attempt

A sheriff’s deputy shot and wounded one of two men stopped for apparently attempting to steal a car early Monday when the suspect tried to run away while being frisked, authorities said.

Kelvin Davis, 28, of Los Angeles, was shot in the buttocks and was in stable condition at Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center, deputies said. The names of the deputies involved in the shooting were not released.

The deputies were driving in the 300 block of West Magnolia Street in Compton about 1:20 a.m. when they stopped two men they believed were trying to steal a car, Deputy Mary Landreth said.

“One of the deputies was conducting a pat-down search” of Davis “when she felt what was possibly a handgun in his right front pants pocket,” Landreth said.

Davis broke free and ran and the deputies gave chase. When they found him, one deputy, believing that Davis was armed, fired one shot that hit him in the buttocks, Landreth said.

A sheriff’s spokesman said later that no gun was found in the vicinity.

A second suspect, Edward Franklin, 23, of Los Angeles, was arrested and booked at the Lynwood sheriff’s station on outstanding warrants, Landreth said.