Officer’s Alleged Assailant Slain in Shooting Outside Pacoima House

A man who shot at a Los Angeles police officer outside a Pacoima house Sunday morning was killed when the officer returned fire, police said.

Officer George Wright, an 18-year veteran, fired eight shots at a 29-year-old man hiding behind a fence after the man fired three times at Wright and his partner, said Lt. William Hall, head of the Los Angeles Police Department’s officer involved shooting unit.

The man, whose name was not released pending notification of his relatives, died at the scene of the shooting from bullet wounds. He was shot in the head and knee, Hall said. Wright suffered minor injuries in the 7:30 a.m. shooting.

Wright, 44, and his rookie partner, Mario Santana, 23, went to a house in the 14200 block of Daventry Street to investigate a report of domestic violence. A woman at the tract home in a working-class neighborhood told police that the man, apparently a friend of the family, was causing a disturbance and refused to leave. Wright and Santana walked to the side of the house, where they saw the head and shoulders of a man behind a wooden back-yard fence.

The two officers ordered the man to raise his hands above his head, but he raised only his left hand, police said. When Wright walked toward the fence, the man fired three shots from a .357 magnum; a fragment from one of the bullets hit Wright in the left eyelid, Hall said.

Wright fired eight shots through the fence.

Paramedics pronounced the man dead at the scene. Wright was treated at Holy Cross Medical Center in Mission Hills and released. Santana, who did not fire his weapon, was not injured.

Neighbors said they heard several gunshots in quick succession and then ran into the street and saw the officers crouched in the driveway of the tract house.

As many as seven people lived in the house, neighbors said. It was unclear how many people were home at the time of the shooting.