Felony Charges Filed in Gun Battle

The district attorney’s office filed felony charges Monday against three men accused of trying to hold up a North Hills dental office, setting off a running gun battle with police on the crowded streets of the central San Fernando Valley.

Police say two brothers, Lamonti and Michael Mitchell, and Charles Knight, all of South-Central Los Angeles, stormed into a dental office on Sepulveda Boulevard Thursday afternoon and demanded jewelry and money from patients and employees. A doctor and nurse were pistol-whipped.

When police arrived in response to a 911 call from the office, the robbers split up, with Knight running for cover in the nearby buildings and the Mitchell brothers allegedly getting into a shootout with police, Deputy Dist. Atty. Robert Cohen said.

A security guard shot Michael Mitchell, 29, as he fled from the Central Valley Bazaar, authorities said. The guard, Byron Reyes, was shot in the thigh.

Police captured the Mitchell brothers after their auto crashed into a patrol car, Cohen said. Knight was captured after a tense two-hour standoff at a nearby apartment building.

The Mitchells were charged Monday with five counts of robbery, two counts of assault with a deadly weapon on a police officer, three counts of attempted murder and one count of carjacking, Cohen said. Michael Mitchell faces an additional attempted murder charge in the shooting of the security guard, Cohen said.

Knight, 22, faces the same robbery and assault charges, but not the attempted murder and carjacking charges, since he was not part of the gun battle, Cohen said.