LAPD Bicycle Officer Shot by Gunman in Passing Car

About six blocks from City Hall where Mayor Richard Riordan had introduced 32-year LAPD veteran Bernard Parks as the next chief of police an hour earlier, a Los Angeles police officer on bicycle patrol was shot in the back Tuesday morning by a gunman who got away.

The Central Division officer, identified as Peter Foster, 32, was wearing a bulletproof vest at the time of the 11 a.m. attack at 1st and Rose streets and was not seriously injured. The bullet did not penetrate the vest, authorities said.

“He was very fortunate,” said Riordan, who, with Parks, rushed to White Memorial Medical Center in Boyle Heights to see the officer.

Interim Police Chief Bayan Lewis, who also was at White Memorial, said Foster, an eight-year department veteran, was on routine bike patrol just east of Little Tokyo and had just given directions to a motorist when an occupant of a passing vehicle fired a shot at the officer. The force of the bullet knocked Foster off his bike, Lewis said.

One worker in the area was impressed by how quickly officers arrived at the scene. “I have never seen so many police cars,” said Miriam Magana, a cashier at the nearby Senor Fish restaurant.

The vehicle carrying the gunman got away.

Investigators said they were unaware of any motive for the shooting, but Riordan and Parks were quick to denounce it.

It was a “very bold action” that won’t be tolerated, the mayor told reporters outside the hospital emergency room.

“It’s very unfortunate that a young officer . . . is shot for no apparent reason,” Parks said.

Parks and the mayor said the officer was in pretty good spirits.

White Memorial spokeswoman Alicia Gonzalez said Foster was released after doctors cleared him to leave about 2 p.m.

Asked how he felt that an officer was shot on his first day on the job as LAPD’s new chief, Parks corrected reporters, pointing out that he was there as the LAPD’s deputy chief in charge of operations.

Technically, Lewis, who stood quietly in the background as Parks and Riordan fielded reporters’ questions, is still in charge of the Police Department until Parks is confirmed by the City Council.

The fact that the LAPD’s top brass appeared so quickly at the hospital is far different from an incident in 1994. Then Chief Willie L. Williams was criticized by some officers when he failed to immediately return from a trip to Las Vegas, where he and his wife were celebrating their 28th wedding anniversary, after Officer Charles Heim was shot to death in Hollywood.

Williams returned two days after the officer was killed.