Officer Returns Fire, Killing Youth, After Being Saved by Radio, Protective Vest : Crime: Teen-age assailant hid in a closet and shot twice during police search of El Monte apartment, officials said.

An El Monte police officer who was shot twice by a suspect he chased into an apartment survived the blasts and killed his assailant.

Officer Ralph Batres, 24, was treated and released from County-USC Medical Center after the Tuesday night shooting. One .45-caliber slug bounced off his bulletproof vest and another lodged in the police radio he was carrying.

“He doesn’t know how he survived,” El Monte Detective Ervin Reyburn said. “He really didn’t know he was shot. He staggered out to the living room and collapsed there from the trauma of the bullet striking the vest.”

The suspect, Jose Garcia, 16, of El Monte died at the county hospital of multiple gunshot wounds, authorities said.

Batres was relieved of patrol duties for a week and the incident is under investigation by sheriff’s detectives, which is routine in officer-involved shootings.

According to sheriff’s investigators, the shooting occurred after Batres and other officers were sent to a Gibson Road apartment complex. Police had been informed that two people at the complex had been involved in a double murder six months ago.

When the officers arrived, one person broke from a group of four at the front of the complex. The youth ran into an apartment and Batres and another officer chased him.

Deputies said the officers were given permission to enter the apartment, although they would not say by whom. The officers went to a closed bedroom door, knocked and entered. Garcia fired from a closet, authorities said. A .45-caliber semiautomatic pistol, a .41-caliber magnum revolver and a .22-caliber revolver were recovered by police.

Batres, a four-year veteran of the department, was described by other officers as a “local” who grew up in an El Monte family of 13 children.