Bullet-Riddled Mercedes Could Help Solve Case
A gold Mercedes-Benz with bullet holes in it may be the key to finding the motorist who wounded an off-duty traffic officer in a car-to-car shootout on the Harbor Freeway, police said Monday.
“It’s already an unusual car,” Los Angeles Police Department spokesman Jack Richter said. “But now it’s an unusual car with bullet holes in it.”
A South Traffic Division officer on his way to work traded gunfire with the driver of the Mercedes on Sunday afternoon when the car, which was being driven erratically, pulled alongside the officer’s pickup near the Century Freeway.
The 27-year-old officer, who was struck in both legs, got off the freeway onto Manchester Avenue and called for help. He remained hospitalized Monday.
Police said the driver had three passengers in the mid-1990s, four-door Mercedes-Benz 500 with tinted windows.
Police don’t know what prompted the shooting. The officer was driving his own vehicle and was not trying to make a traffic stop, police said.
“They might not have known he was a police officer,” Richter said.
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