Teen Shot in Gang Melee at Medical Center; Suspect Arrested : Crime: Suspect twice turns his gun on officer during chase outside. Security is bolstered at facility.

A teen-ager was shot in the face and listed in serious condition after a melee broke out between rival gang factions in an 11th-floor ward at County-USC Medical Center, police said Wednesday.

The altercation, which quickly prompted administrators to bolster security at the nation’s largest teaching hospital, involved about 20 youths who were visiting patients Tuesday night, authorities said. Apparently, the two factions met by chance just as visiting hours were ending at 8 p.m., police said.

Shouting and shoving in a corridor spilled into a stairwell, where one gang member drew a handgun and shot the rival in the cheek, police said. The alleged gunman then fled down the stairwell, authorities said, and was caught by a county safety officer after a foot chase on the medical center grounds.

The suspect twice turned his gun on Officer Edgar Garcia, 26, a fourth-degree black belt in karate, before the speedier Garcia, who was also armed, caught up, hospital officials said.

“I chased him probably 150 yards or more,” Garcia said later.

The suspect obeyed Garcia’s order to surrender only after throwing away his gun, which landed on a street and discharged another round. Police searched the dark streets for four hours before recovering the weapon.

Jose Llamas, 18, of Los Angeles was arrested and booked for investigation of attempted murder, Los Angeles Police Department Detective Jack Forsman said.

Investigators said the rival Latino gangs apparently were from an area west of downtown Los Angeles, not from the Eastside neighborhood surrounding the medical center.

A number of youths were still being questioned Wednesday, but Forsman declined to comment on the likelihood of further arrests.

Meanwhile, Toeibio Sanchez, 18, of Los Angeles was treated in the medical center’s emergency room and was listed Wednesday in serious but stable condition.

Hospital administrators, who in recent years have begun installing costly security systems at the 60-year-old medical center, said additional county officers would be placed on duty to guard against a possible retaliatory attack. It was believed to be the first gang-related shooting in the medical center in several years.

“This is a very unusual situation,” said Harvey Kern, the hospital’s assistant executive director. “I’ve been here four years and we haven’t had anything like this. We’ve generally been safe . . . neutral (territory) or whatever.”

Hospital administrator Richard D. Cordova said the medical center began responding to increasing street violence in East Los Angeles several years ago by investing several hundred thousand dollars in a network of security cameras--now partly operational--and a card-key system that limits access to the building at night.

But the main building has no metal detectors--a contrast to Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center in Watts--and daytime visiting hours are relatively free, according to administrators.

Cordova said it was unclear so far which patients were being visited Tuesday and how the two gang factions ended up in the same 11th-floor corridor in the pulmonary ward. The skirmish, he said, was reported by nurses on duty and quelled by nine county safety-police officers with help from three sheriff’s deputies who came down from the 13th-floor jail ward.

Officer Garcia said he was answering the call and was still on the ground floor when he saw a youth pass him “walking in a very rapid manner, as if he was attempting to leave the hospital in a hurry.” Garcia also noticed a furtive look and a bulge in the waistband of the youth’s pants that appeared to be a gun, he said.

Garcia decided to follow the youth, rather than stop him inside the building, for fear that a gun battle might endanger lives of those in the hallway. The suspect left the building near the emergency room, Garcia said, and once outside the officer ordered him to stop.

“He reached with his right hand . . . and turned toward me, pointing what I recognized as a small black handgun,” the officer recalled. “I went to my knees in a shooting position . . . and ordered him to drop the weapon.”

At that instant, Garcia said, a car pulled up the ramp to the emergency room--between him and the suspect. The suspect ran. Garcia chased him down the ramp, with the suspect turning once to point the gun a second time, before the pursuit ended near the end of the long ramp.

George Frank, chief of the county safety-police force overseeing the 10,000-employee medical center, said Garcia would likely be singled out for a commendation.

“He’s fast,” Frank said. “I kind of think he’s the hero.”