CHP Shoots Man on 405, Closing Freeway

A 26-year-old man was shot and wounded early Saturday on the San Diego Freeway in Long Beach after he ran toward two California Highway Patrol officers and ignored their warnings that they would shoot him if he didn’t drop what they thought was a weapon in his hand, police said.

The unidentified man, who was expected to survive, was reported to be in serious but stable condition late Saturday. CHP spokesman Bill Preciado said that the object police saw was actually a wrench, and that the man had a knife in his other hand.

The incident, which occurred at 5:35 a.m. alongside the northbound lanes near the Bellflower Boulevard exit, closed the freeway for seven hours, backing up traffic for miles, the CHP said.

The freeway was reopened to traffic shortly before 1 p.m.

One homeless advocate in Los Angeles said the man was homeless and called for an investigation into the shooting.

The man had gone to Long Beach Memorial Medical Center on Friday night seeking psychiatric help, Preciado said. “Before he could be admitted, he left the hospital voluntarily,” Preciado said.

“Hours later, our officers come upon him on the freeway.”

Two CHP officers were dispatched to the scene after a man was reported walking next to the freeway’s center divider near Palo Verde Avenue. They didn’t locate him, but another CHP cruiser with two officers, identified as Charleton Adams and Sam Knight, found a man on the right shoulder of the freeway near the Bellflower exit, Preciado said.

They approached him and noticed he had a metal object, which turned out to be the wrench, in one hand. “He began running toward them and they ordered him to stop and drop the metal object,” Preciado said.

The man didn’t obey the officers’ repeated commands and, fearing for their safety, they fired at him, hitting him at least once in the upper torso, Preciado said.

The man was taken to Long Beach Memorial Medical Center. Maureen Williams, a spokeswoman for the medical center, said hospital personnel found the man’s name in the facility’s computers, where it had been entered the night before. “They recognized his name . . . when he was brought [after being shot],” Williams said.

Upon learning of the shooting, Los Angeles homeless advocate Ted Hayes criticized the Long Beach facility for not providing treatment to the man, whom Hayes described as being homeless.

Williams rejected Hayes’ criticism, saying the man would have been admitted for treatment if he had not decided to leave.

Hayes said the shooting was reminiscent of the May 21 incident in which two Los Angeles police officers fatally shot a mentally ill homeless woman, who officers say attacked them with a screwdriver.