Police Officers Confront, Shoot Armed Murder Suspect

Los Angeles police shot and wounded an armed man driving a school bus early Saturday shortly after receiving a report that a gunman in a school bus had shot and killed another man on 77th Street in South-Central Los Angeles.

The wounded man, Tracy Walker, 27, of Los Angeles was rushed to Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center, where he was reported in serious condition with several gunshot wounds. Police said they planned to book Walker on suspicion of murder.

LAPD Detective Ron Karlson did not identify the 34-year-old man that Walker is suspected of killing. The man was shot at 2:40 a.m. Saturday in the 1000 block of West 77th Street.

Karlson said witnesses to that shooting told police the gunman fled in a small yellow school bus. Eleven minutes later, Sgt. Bernard Hulshof saw such a bus a mile and a half away, on Manchester Avenue near the Harbor Freeway.

Karlson said that two other officers, Ward Jenkins and Mike Lomeli, stopped the bus on San Pedro Street and ordered the driver out. When the officers saw he was wearing a holstered handgun, they ordered him to raise his hands.

Police said that Walker began to comply but then “grabbed his weapon.” Lomeli and Jenkins fired four shots, and Lomeli fired two more after Walker fell and continued trying to unholster his gun, police said.

Walker regained his feet and moved to the opposite side of the school bus, where he encountered Hulshof. Police said the sergeant fired once.

Karlson said officers found one loaded revolver in Walker’s front pants pocket and a second loaded revolver on the street near where Walker first fell.