Deputies Seek Suspect Who Slipped Handcuffs

The search intensified on Monday for a drive-by shooting suspect who slipped out of his handcuffs and escaped while being guarded by four sheriff’s deputies, authorities said.

Albert Bagdasian, 21--also known as Arthur Mastikian--is considered violent, armed and dangerous, said Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Deputy Jesus Arellano.

“He’s still out there and he’s got a lot of friends,” Arellano said Monday. “That makes our job a little harder.”

Arellano said Bagdasian is a gang associate who had been arrested previously on suspicion of murder, rape, auto theft, burglary and assault with a deadly weapon. Bagdasian is of average height, weight and build, but one thing that should make him easy to identify is a “very distinctive,” 10-inch scar that runs from his jaw to his collarbone, the deputy said.

“That scar is the result of a gunshot wound,” Arellano said. “God only knows when he got that.”

Officials said Bagdasian was chained to two other prisoners and being watched by four sheriff’s deputies when he somehow slipped out of his metal handcuffs on the Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center loading dock late Saturday night. He then fled on foot into the darkness of the hospital’s grounds.

The area was cordoned off and searched, but Bagdasian was not found.

Arellano said Bagdasian had been arrested the night before after Los Angeles police officers spotted him and an associate driving around the Highland Park area, trying to break into parked cars.

“The patrol car tried to stop them, and a vehicle pursuit ensued,” the deputy said. “The pursuit ended in a traffic accident, and both the occupants fled on foot. Bagdasian was apprehended. The other guy was not.”

Arellano said that during the investigation that followed, the arresting officers learned that the car had been stolen in Norwalk.

“Then a witness drove up and said the car had been involved (a few minutes earlier) in a drive-by shooting,” the deputy said. “The officers went there, and four people said they had been standing out front when the car cruises by and a passenger sticks his gun out the window and starts shooting. None of them were hit.”

Arellano said that as a result of the reported incidents on Friday, Bagdasian was booked early Saturday on suspicion of evading arrest, grand theft auto and attempted murder with a firearm. Information on why he was later transferred to the jail ward at the medical center was not immediately available.