Man Shot by Police Probably Feared Another Arrest, Father Says : Crime: Terry Parker, 23, had been out of jail three months on his third drunk-driving conviction. Authorities say he tried to run officer down.

A judge had revoked Terry Parker’s driver’s license and the 23-year-old had been out of jail just three months after his third drunk-driving conviction. Still, his father had to hide the keys to the family truck so his son couldn’t drink and drive.

On Tuesday night, Parker found the keys.

Then he led Los Angeles police on a chase that ended only after he was shot twice and wounded when he allegedly tried to run over an officer with his truck, authorities said.

Parker was arrested and taken to Holy Cross Medical Center with bullet wounds in the chest and left leg, a Los Angeles Police Department spokesman said.

Police said the wounds were not life-threatening. The hospital would not comment on Parker’s condition.

When Parker recovers, he will be booked on suspicion of assaulting a police officer with a deadly weapon, as well as an earlier cocaine possession charge, police spokesman Arthur Holmes said.

On Wednesday, James Parker, the suspect’s father, said his son was probably fleeing police to avoid another arrest. His son had recently served 70 days in County Jail for the most recent of his three drunk-driving convictions, Parker said.

“He was drunk, there was no doubt about it,” said the elder Parker.

Parker said his son has been drinking since the age of 8. “He doesn’t drink much of the hard stuff, but he sure can pound beer,” he said.

But Parker said he does not believe his son tried to run over the police officers.

The incident began about 9 p.m. Tuesday when officers tried to stop Parker for an alleged traffic violation near Lassen Street and Haskell Avenue, Holmes said.

But Parker suddenly sped away and the officers chased the pickup truck he was driving for about a mile, to the Rinaldi Street on-ramp of the southbound San Diego Freeway.

Then Parker abruptly stopped, Holmes said.

Meanwhile, Officers Carl Oschmann and Michael Clark, both 27, who had heard about the chase on their police radio, stopped their police car in front of Parker’s vehicle. Holmes said Oschmann got out of the passenger’s seat and started walking toward the truck and then Parker drove forward, hitting the police car’s open passenger door.

Then Parker began to back the truck in the direction of another officer. Oschmann, who feared for the safety of his colleague, fired twice from his 9-millimeter service revolver and hit Parker both times, police said.

Holmes said Parker was “apparently unaffected by the rounds,” and continued driving. He led officers on another pursuit, this time for several blocks to the Harvest Street home he shares with his father.

“He drove up over the curb to the door and said, ‘I’m shot, Dad,’ the elder Parker said Wednesday. “I said, ‘What do you mean you’re shot?’ Then I noticed the glass in the window was broken.”

Within minutes, nine police cars and a helicopter surrounded the house and his son was arrested, James Parker said.

The elder Parker, 59, who won custody of Terry after he divorced in 1974, said his son has been drinking on and off since the boy’s grandmother died in 1978. Terry Parker dropped out of Kennedy High School and has been employed only sporadically as a laborer.

Police spokesman Lt. John Dunkin said Wednesday that Terry Parker also had been wanted on a $35,000 felony warrant for possessing cocaine, which may have caused him to try to elude police.

Dunkin said police are also investigating whether the younger Parker had been involved in a similar chase with California Highway Patrol officers in the past month.

Oschmann, a 5 1/2-year veteran, has been assigned to desk duty pending an investigation into the shooting and psychological counseling, a standard practice of the Police Department, Dunkin said.