Drug Sale Suspect Dies in Shoot-Out : Violence: ‘Reverse sting’ by officers erupts in wild gunfire at Alpine Village restaurant parking lot. A second alleged dealer is wounded and three others escape.

An alleged drug dealer was shot to death and another was critically wounded Thursday evening in a wild shoot-out with police officers and sheriff’s deputies during a “reverse sting” drug sale in the parking lot of Alpine Village, a popular dining and hotel complex near Carson, authorities said.

Three other men fled the scene and were still at large, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Deputy Larry Mead said. No officers, deputies or civilians were injured in the shooting that erupted at 6 p.m. outside the complex at 833 Torrance Blvd., Mead said.

Neither of the shooting victims was identified.

Two undercover officers--a sheriff’s deputy and a Redondo Beach police officer--went to a parking lot behind the Alpine Village Lodge to negotiate a cocaine sale with one of the suspects, Mead said. Nine other officers and deputies were positioned at various locations in the crowded parking lot to back up the officers involved in the drug sale, the deputy said.

Mead said no money was found on the dead man or the wounded suspect or in their vehicle, indicating that they intended to rob the officers.

One suspect crouched between cars, out of sight of the officers negotiating the sale, Mead said. A backup officer saw the crouching man, drew his weapon and ordered the suspect to freeze, the deputy said.

Instead, the man drew a handgun and began firing at the officer, Mead said, setting off an exchange of dozens of shots between the suspects and officers.

The scene in the parking lot was “like World War II,” said Leo Valencia, who was leaving a restaurant in the complex with his wife just as the shooting started. “There were undercover officers everywhere, shooting at every moving guy and yelling, ‘Don’t move!’ ”

Valencia said he and his wife immediately dropped to the ground, about a car length from one of the officers who was shooting. He told reporters that officers “probably don’t even want us to talk to you because we’ve witnessed an execution. It was a setup. They (officers) shot point blank.”

Before Valencia could elaborate, investigators came over and led him inside police lines.

A sheriff’s spokesman had no immediate comment on Valencia’s allegation.

Don Kellar, who lives in an unincorporated area of the county near Compton, said he had just pulled into the lot when he “heard the shots going off like mad. I got out of the car, and an officer said, ‘Get down, get down.’ I got down.”

George Martin of Torrance was on his way to a dance at the Alpine Inn and was just opening his car door when “I heard a lot of gunfire. Then I ducked my head down until I didn’t hear anything. All I saw later were the police with their rifles running across the parking lot.”

Deputies said the critically wounded suspect fled into a bathroom in the restaurant where he was arrested. He was taken to UCLA-Harbor General Medical Center.

No shots were fired in the restaurant, Mead said.

Three suspects--at least one armed with an assault weapon--were in a Chevrolet Blazer in the lot, deputies said. One of them was shot to death, but the other two escaped on foot, investigators said.

Deputies later recovered the assault rifle, a Colt .45 revolver, a semiautomatic pistol and a second revolver, Mead said. The suspect seen crouching between cars might have been wounded, the deputy said, but he also escaped.

Late Thursday, authorities aided by helicopters and police dogs scoured the area near the complex, but no further arrests were announced.

Mead said investigators had been working for three weeks to set up the drug sale, and officers went to Alpine Village to make the transaction at the suggestion of the suspects.

Times photographer Brian Vander Brug also contributed to this story.