Officer Is Shot in Koreatown

A Los Angeles police officer was shot at close range and seriously wounded Friday by a man brandishing a shotgun on a Koreatown street crowded with lunchtime pedestrians.

Officers had been trailing the suspect as he walked down city streets holding the gun in his duffel bag, when he turned and fired, police said. They tackled him to the ground a half-block before he reached busy Western Avenue.

The wounded officer, Victor Alvarez, 29, a 6 1/2-year veteran of the force, was struck in the shoulder, with the blast shredding a portion of his bulletproof vest, police officials said. He was rushed to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, where he underwent surgery and was listed in serious but stable condition by day’s end.

Before the shooting, the suspect, identified as David Roland Young, 47, had walked nearly seven blocks carrying a Mossberg 12-gauge pump action shotgun in a black bag, police said, trailed by more than a half-dozen officers ordering him to drop the weapon. When he fired instead, none of those officers shot back.

Cmdr. Gary Brennan, who briefed reporters at the scene, called the actions of the eight officers “extremely heroic.”

“The officers put themselves at risk rather than put pedestrians at risk,” Brennan said.

Police Chief William J. Bratton was attending the funeral of Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Deputy David Powell, killed last week in the line of duty, when word came that Alvarez had been shot. He flew by helicopter from the funeral to the hospital.

Bratton, who was then briefed by investigators at the scene, said there was every indication that the officers followed policy and took extraordinary caution in protecting the lives of bystanders.

“I’m not concerned about aggressive cops,” Bratton said. “I’m concerned about an individual who is surrounded by eight police officers who chooses to use his shotgun.”

At a time when homicides in the city are reaching numbers not seen since the mid-1990s, Bratton said he was extremely troubled by the spectacle of someone “walking around with a shotgun in hand.”

“It is a clear indication that there are too many guns in this city and too many people willing to use them,” said Bratton, who has been on the job less than two months.

Young has a history of problems with authority, according to law enforcement officials and social service workers who had tried to help him find a job. He was arrested on suspicion of making criminal threats, battery and making a bomb threat in October 2000, although district attorney officials said those charges were dropped.

Young’s confrontation with police began near the corner of Wilshire Boulevard and Kingsley Drive after residents spotted his shotgun and flagged down a squad car.

Despite noontime temperatures in the 70s, Young was wearing an overcoat and fatigues, his long hair matted in dreadlocks.

Earlier, muttering words about Jesus and carrying the duffel bag that later proved to contain the shotgun, Young had gone to a nearby nonprofit job bank. But employees at the fifth-floor offices of Community Career Development Inc. had been warned by building security to be on the lookout for a man matching Young’s description because there had been petty thefts in the building during times he had been there.

Receptionist Teresita Loria said that when Young showed up about 11 a.m., he seemed agitated. During past visits, Loria said, he was “never aggressive or mean, always smiling.” Because of the request from building security, he was told Friday that he couldn’t use the firm’s equipment any more.

Employees also called security, as they had been instructed to do, to inform them that Young was in their offices. By the time building guards and police officers on bicycles responded, Young was gone, according to Alton Williams, the guard on duty at Paramount Plaza at the time of Young’s visit.

His trail was picked up on the street below, with officers from Wilshire and nearby Rampart divisions quickly responding. Not far from the office building, Jarel Carillo, 10, heard the suspect tell officers to “stand back,” and then watched him walk away with the officers a short distance behind.

From inside his car at 8th Street and Oxford Avenue, David Choi looked up to see the slow-speed foot pursuit.

“The suspect was walking leisurely,” Choi said. “He didn’t look like he was being chased by cops. It looked like he was carrying a musical instrument in a black bag.”

As Choi tried to park his car to make deliveries for his print shop, he heard a single shot.

“I don’t understand why the cops did not jump on him from behind,” he said.

The shooting stunned local residents and business owners.

“It’s frightening that someone would shoot in broad daylight,” said a woman on her way to a doctor’s appointment, who declined to give her name. Standing behind the yellow police line at 8th Street and Western Avenue, she said, “Things are going from bad to worse. How can we walk around here anymore?”

After the shooting, detectives searched a storage facility less than a block away when it was discovered that Young, who has lived in the Los Angeles area for about a decade, rented several small storage lockers, police officials said.

At Cedars-Sinai, Alvarez, whose parents rushed to be by his side, underwent several hours of surgery. Police officials said he lost a substantial amount of blood. Bratton said the bulletproof vest Alvarez was wearing probably prevented an even more serious injury.

As word got around that Alvarez would survive, many officers left the hospital to get back to work.

“We hear he’s going to be fine,” said Capt. Doug Shur, patrol division commanding officer for Rampart, where Alvarez is assigned. “Something like that is our worst nightmare.”

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Times staff writers Daren Briscoe, Megan Garvey, Connie Kang, Jill Leovy and Kurt Streeter contributed to this report.