Violence Strikes Guardians and the Innocent

Crime may be down, but American society remains an armed camp, violence involving firearms continues to erupt with tragic frequency and police work is as dangerous as ever.

Those sobering facts were on the minds of many law enforcement officials Friday, as a reserve officer fought for his life and three other Southland peace officers recovered from injuries following a series of unrelated shootings across Los Angeles County.

A 34-year-old off-duty Maywood reserve officer, Richard Elizondo Sr., was in extremely critical condition and his 15-year-old son was in critical but stable condition after being shot in the garage of their Pico Rivera home about 9 p.m. on Thursday. The motive for the attack was unknown, officials said. No arrests have been made.

In another incident, Deputy Carlos Ponce, 43, was shot while off duty about 7:30 p.m. Thursday as he tried to stop the robbery of a La Mirada flower shop. The deputy was in critical but stable condition at UC Irvine Medical Center.

Earlier Thursday, Officers Donald Boon, 32, and Manuel Solis, 24, of the Los Angeles Police Department’s Foothill Division were shot when they responded to a domestic dispute in Lake View Terrace. Solis was treated for a wound to his face and released. Boon was in stable condition with multiple bullet fragments in his left hip.

“To have that number of officers shot in separate incidents is unusual, there is no question about it,” said Sheriff Sherman Block. “Yet when you look at the total picture . . . what you see is a rejection of authority in general. It certainly manifests itself in attacks on law enforcement.”

Making matters worse, Block said, is the fact that law officers are often outgunned. “The weapons [criminals] are carrying are fairly sophisticated,” the sheriff said. “We don’t encounter too many with cheap little guns.”

Case in point: Reynaldo Rivera, arrested on charges of shooting LAPD Officers Boon and Solis in Lake View Terrace, was armed with a Colt AR-15 assault rifle for which he had six fully loaded 30-round magazines of ammunition, sources said.

Sales of the Colt AR-15, the civilian version of the military’s M-16, have been banned under state law since 1989 and federal law since 1994. Those who purchased such a weapon prior to the California ban are required to register the weapon with authorities. According to a law enforcement source who spoke on the condition of anonymity, Rivera registered the weapon in 1991.

Solis, who was released from the hospital Thursday, did a “walk-through” re-creation of the shooting with investigators that evening, but Boon remained heavily medicated Friday and had not been debriefed about the incident, LAPD spokesman Lt. Anthony Alba said.

Solis, 24, credits an angel that he had pinned to his bulletproof vest for protecting him during the gun battle, Alba said. “He thinks that angel saved him, and I don’t think anyone is going to convince him otherwise now,” Alba said. The pin was lost during the gunfight, Alba said.

Rivera, 46, who police say is an unemployed laborer, was booked for attempted murder of a police officer and held without bail at the Van Nuys jail. He is expected to be arraigned Tuesday.

Meanwhile, family members said that Elizondo, the Maywood reserve officer, was shot in the neck while sitting in his truck at his Pico Rivera townhouse. They said he was paralyzed from the neck down by the wounds. The family said Elizondo’s 15-year-old son, Richard Jr., was shot in the chest and arm.

Elizondo had pulled into the garage and his son had gotten out of the truck to move some boxes, said Elizondo’s sister, Yolanda. While the father waited, both were shot, she said.

Homicide Det. Rod Kusch said the gunmen fired from outside the garage door.

The elder Elizondo “didn’t know he was shot,” said Yolanda Elizondo. “He was in shock. [Richard Jr.] told his dad, ‘Dad, we’ve just been shot. That’s what that explosion was.’ ”

The father had worked for various law enforcement agencies since he was 18, including most recently the Hawaiian Gardens Police Department, said his brother, Lorenzo Elizondo. When the Sheriff’s Department absorbed that agency last November, Richard Elizondo was not hired and is currently in litigation over pay that he feels he is owed, Lorenzo said.

“Our main concern is that our brother has no insurance,” said Lorenzo, explaining that as a reserve officer he gets no health benefits.

At the gated community where the shooting occurred, sheriff’s homicide detectives looked for leads among the neat lawns and peach-colored townhouses. Kusch paced through a nearby field of tall wet grass, looking for evidence where a young girl said she saw someone running just after the shooting.

“As far as motive goes, we really have nothing in particular,” said Kusch.

Sheriff’s deputies also were continuing to search for a wounded man who shot the off-duty deputy in the face during an attempted holdup at Conroy’s Flowers at 14203 E. Imperial Highway Thursday night. Deputy Carlos Ponce, a member of the department’s anti-gang task force, was in the shop to buy flowers when the gunman came in and demanded money, authorities said.

Instead of turning over his wallet--where he had his badge--Ponce drew his gun and identified himself as a deputy.

“I can’t help but believe that when this armed individual asked for his billfold, that the situation with Shayne York ran through his mind,” Block said. In the York case, robbers holding up an Orange County hair salon in August found that unarmed deputy’s badge and killed him.

Ponce “had no option but to try to resolve the situation in the way he was trained to do,” Block said.

The robber, described as Latino between 19 and 25, was last seen on foot, wearing a black and white long-sleeved shirt, blue jeans and light-colored shoes.

Times staff writers T. Christian Miller, Jeff Leeds and Tina Daunt contributed to this story.