Police Shoot Man in Wake of Killing

A scuffle over a gun left one man dead and another critically wounded Friday afternoon on a sidewalk in front of the Ronald Reagan State Building in downtown Los Angeles, police said.

The two unidentified men were fighting over the handgun when one of the men shot the other, and was then shot and critically wounded by a police officer, said Lt. Anthony Alba, an LAPD spokesman.

The incident began about 3:15 p.m., when LAPD Central Division Officer Benson Min, 27, who was driving north in the Spring Street bus lane, saw the two men grappling over the weapon, police said.

Min stopped his patrol car just south of 3rd Street, got out, pulled his pistol and ordered the men to freeze. “One of the men shot the other, then pointed his pistol at the officer,” Alba said. “The officer fired, wounding the man.”

Maria Ramirez, a waitress at the Europa Deli on the northwest corner of 3rd and Spring, said she heard five shots.

“I ran outside and I saw two men lying on the sidewalk . . . and the policeman standing there,” Ramirez said. “. . . One of the men on the sidewalk was moving. The other wasn’t.”

The two wounded men--one 28, the other 32--were taken by ambulance to the Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center. The 28-year-old was pronounced dead from a gunshot wound to the chest. The older man, whose wounds were not described, was listed in critical condition and underwent emergency surgery.

The man who died was shot by the other suspect and the man who underwent surgery was shot by the officer, Alba said.

Police said Min has been on the force for almost three years and was recently promoted to training officer.

The alleged gunman was booked for investigation of murder, a police spokesman said, adding that it was not immediately determined what charges might be sought related to threatening a police officer. The circumstances that led to the fight over the gun were not immediately clear, Alba said.