Marshal, L.A. Officer Shot, Suspect Killed in Siege

Police who had lobbed tear gas for hours at a Marina del Rey apartment after a narcotics suspect shot and wounded two lawmen Monday finally blew off the apartment door and searched room to room, finding the suspect dead after a 13-hour siege.

Police said they didn’t know what killed the 20-year-old man, whose body was found about midnight.

Shortly after 4 p.m., police had begun firing tear gas canisters into the fifth-floor apartment on Lincoln Boulevard where the suspect, Joseph Macio Allain, was holed up. But the acrid smoke from eight canisters, which wafted over the neighborhood, failed to dislodge him.

At about 10 p.m., the Los Angeles Police Department bomb squad blew the apartment door off its hinges because police suspected it had been wired with explosives. A SWAT team was inside going room to room at about 10:40 p.m., proceeding on the assumption that the apartment might have been booby-trapped, said LAPD Cmdr. Sharon Papa.

The officers Allain allegedly shot earlier, Deputy Marshal Larry Gloth, 31, and LAPD Senior Lead Officer Gerry Smedley, 44, were treated at local hospitals. Doctors said both were in stable condition and expected to recover fully.

Police negotiators had talked by telephone with the suspect.

Officers said Allain was arrested Oct. 30 and charged with possession of two kilos of cocaine as a result of an indictment handed down Oct. 18 in connection with a drug case in Tennessee. On Nov. 7, he was released on $50,000 bail, on the condition that he wear an electronic bracelet so officers could monitor his whereabouts.

After he violated the terms of his bail last weekend by removing the bracelet, two marshals went to the upscale Marina Pointe apartment complex about 11 a.m. Monday to rearrest him, officials said.

“They knocked on the door,” said Sgt. John Pasquariello, a spokesman for the LAPD. “Instead of opening the door, he answers with gunfire from a high-powered assault rifle.”

Aldean Lee, an assistant chief with the Marshals Service, said a shot struck Gloth in the right arm.

A woman who lives nearby heard the shots, came out and helped the other marshal drag Gloth into her apartment, Lt. Horace Frank said.

A neighbor who lives a floor above said the uninjured marshal was screaming, “Somebody, please call police!”

Julie Wright, 25, and Tracy Frost, 32, both flight attendants with Virgin Atlantic Airways, said they were walking out of a gymnasium in the shopping complex across the street when they noticed police officers standing beside the patrol cars that had rolled up in front of the apartment complex.

“We heard six or seven shots,” said Wright. “Then we saw an officer go down on his back.”

“He didn’t move,” Frost said.

Pasquariello said Allain apparently had opened fire from his apartment window on the police in the street.

Witnesses said several officers returned fire, but the suspect apparently was not hit.

Fellow officers put Smedley, who had suffered a leg wound, into a patrol car and rushed him to Daniel Freeman Marina Hospital. Doctors there said the bullet had passed cleanly through his right calf and he was released.

Smedley, who is married and has two children, has been with the department since 1982, after service in the Marine Corps.

“Praise God that he’s OK,” said his wife, Debora.

A Los Angeles Fire Department helicopter landed on the street to take Gloth to UCLA Medical Center, where he underwent surgery to repair a wound in the right biceps. Doctors said he would be hospitalized for two to three days.

Meanwhile, helmeted Los Angeles SWAT officers sealed off the area around the apartment, evacuating the residents, who were being given temporary shelter in a nearby Marriott hotel.

The standoff tied up traffic in the Marina for hours as scores of police cordoned off the area. Dozens of shoppers at the Marina Market Place across the street were stranded when police refused to let them move their cars.

Pasquariello said it had been hoped that the negotiating team could persuade Allain to surrender, but after hours of talking, officers decided on stronger measures.

The Red Cross told evacuated residents just before midnight that they could return to their homes shortly.

The Marshals Service pursues and arrests the majority of federal fugitives in the United States, often working with local law enforcement agents as backup.

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Times staff writers Eric Malnic, Louis Sahagun, John Mitchell, David Rosenzweig, Thuy-Doan Le, Nedra Rhone and Noaki Schwartz contributed to this story.