Gun Battle, Standoff Cap Wild Chase : Violence: Heavily armed pair take a hostage in Hall of Records Building. Ordeal begins with Sacramento carjacking, ends in Civic Center crash 400 miles away.

A government building in Downtown Los Angeles was ringed by police sharpshooters past midnight as a dramatic hostage standoff capped a day-long, 400-mile journey that began as a carjacking in Sacramento, led to a wild high-speed chase over the Tehachapis and a gun battle in the crowded streets of Chinatown.

After their stolen truck crashed in the heart of the Downtown Civic Center, the gunmen took a Los Angeles County employee hostage as they forced their way into the Hall of Records Building with powerful weapons, authorities said.

Eight hours later, police were still negotiating by phone with the pair. A woman hostage, seized seconds after a collision with another vehicle ended the chase at Temple Street and Broadway, was believed to be unharmed early this morning, police said.

Two bystanders were slightly wounded as the gunmen and Los Angeles police exchanged shots in Chinatown; two other people, including a CHP officer, were injured when the stolen pickup crashed.

“They said they’ve killed before and would kill again if necessary,” said the carjacking victim, Michael McKeen of Woodland.

McKeen, a part-time newspaper delivery man, was at a Sacramento Burger King early Sunday when the gunmen ordered him into the back of his truck with several hundred newspapers. The pair later freed him on a dirt road in a vineyard near Delano--but not before showing off their 9-millimeter semiautomatic weapons fitted with laser sights and silencers.

As authorities in Los Angeles hacked down trees surrounding the building to get a better view Sunday night, police negotiators were in touch with the suspects, two Asian men.

“Some demands have been made and we are in negotiations,” said LAPD spokesman Lt. John Dunkin.

“These guys are pretty hard-core,” said LAPD Officer Arthur Holmes. “They’ve got laser-sighted weapons; they’re not afraid to shoot. These are not nice people.”

As negotiations continued, a Brinks armored truck, with the company name on the sides covered by paper and tape, pulled up to the intersection outside the Hall of Records.

Into the night, officers, who had access to the lobby of the building, appeared to be playing out scenarios for resolving the crisis.

The odyssey began 400 miles to the north at the Sacramento fast-food outlet.

“They came up to me and told me to get face-down on the ground,” McKeen, 33, said Sunday night. He said the men told him to lie face-up in the back of the truck and keep quiet.

McKeen said the men told him he would not be hurt if they followed his instructions. He gave them the $200 he had and they drove to Bakersfield, where McKeen withdrew another $300 from an automated teller machine.

Then they turned back north and released McKeen in the vineyard.

McKeen called authorities and about 90 minutes later, just after 3 p.m., Kern County sheriff’s deputies spotted the blue 1992 Chevrolet S-10 pickup truck heading south on Interstate 5 near Frazier Park, a town in Kern County near the Los Angeles County line.

The chase hit speeds of 110 m.p.h., and at the county line, California Highway Patrol officers joined the Kern County deputies. Dunkin said shots were fired at CHP officers in three patrol cars as the pickup raced south into Los Angeles.

From the Golden State Freeway, the stolen truck veered briefly down the Harbor Freeway and into Chinatown, where Los Angeles police joined the chase. Once, the truck reportedly stopped at a red light, and the law enforcement convoy halted behind it.

At one point, Los Angeles police exchanged gunfire with the men in the truck. Some shots--whether they came from the police guns or the suspects’ is not known--slightly wounded two bystanders, one superficially and the other more seriously. The injuries were not life-threatening, a Los Angeles city Fire Department spokesman said.

Continuing down Broadway, the blue truck collided with a white pickup truck at Temple. The suspects then ran a few yards to the Hall of Records, one of several public buildings in the Civic Center, and traded shots with CHP officers, Dunkin said. Inside, behind the bullet-shattered glass doors, they grabbed their hostage. It was just after 4 p.m.

As police, sheriff’s deputies and CHP officers scrambled to seal off Downtown streets, the search for the suspects and the hostage began through the plazas and walkways around the building, which is webbed with tunnels, stairwells and hallways.

Police observed one gunman with a chrome-plated revolver in one hand and a blue steel “laser weapon” in the other hand. McKeen described the suspects as Asian, one in his 40s and the other in his 20s. Both spoke English and the older one told McKeen he was from Laos.

To demonstrate their firepower to McKeen, they stopped the truck north of Bakersfield and fired at a post. He said the older gunman had “apparently killed someone before and was trying to get away. . . . He was prepared to die. He would go down fighting.”

Fearing for his life, McKeen told the gunmen that he is married, has three children and a fourth is on the way, and would cooperate with them. “If they were going to kill me, they would have killed me by now,” McKeen said he thought at one point.

After they drove McKeen to near Delano and released him, “They shook my hand and told me ‘Good luck.’ ”

Crime Rampage

A daylong crime spree that began as a carjacking and kidnaping in Sacramento led to a high-speed chase over the Tehachapis and a tense hostage standoff at the county Hall of Records in Downtown Los Angeles.

1) Suspects hijack part-time newspaper delivery man Michael McKeen at gunpoint, take $200 from him and drive south.

2) McKeen is forced to withdraw $300 from an automated teller machine.

3) Suspects turn back north and release McKeen in a vineyard near Delano.

4) McKeen calls authorities, who catch up with the suspects in Frazier Park and begin pursuit toward Downtown Los Angeles at speeds up to 110 m.p.h.

5) Two bystanders wounded by gunfire.

6) Two injured when truck crashes. Gunmen enter Hall of Records and take employee hostage.