Long Beach Officer Shoots Man

Authorities were investigating on Saturday the police shooting of an apparently unarmed man in Long Beach. It was the third officer-involved shooting in the city in four days.

Long Beach police said the incident began late Friday night, when a man in his early 20s flagged down a patrol car near Orange Avenue and Broadway.

The officer said the man had an open alcoholic container and “was acting erratically,” according to a police statement.

When the officer got out of the car, the man “charged at the officer and became involved in a confrontation,” the statement said.

The officer chased the man two blocks to the rear of a house in the 1100 block of 2nd Street and shot him in the upper torso, authorities said.

The preliminary investigation showed the suspect was unarmed, the statement said.

Police did not release the name of the man, who was being treated at an undisclosed hospital, and they did not release the name of the officer who shot him.

Long Beach police and the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office were investigating. Anyone with information is asked to contact Det. Scott Lasch at (562) 570-7244.

In separate shootings last week, Long Beach police killed a murder suspect and wounded a man believed to have kidnapped a woman. Both of those men were armed, police said.

Fidel Fausto, 23, of Long Beach was shot and killed Tuesday at an apartment complex on Temple Avenue, where officers said he had been hiding from police for about a month. He was wanted in the fatal stabbing of a 34-year-old woman June 6 in the 700 block of Virginia Court, authorities said.

In the other incident Tuesday, a man was shot after an altercation that developed as police interviewed a woman who said she had been kidnapped. While officers interviewed the woman, the man she accused in the kidnapping pulled up. The man, who had a handgun, was shot in the arm by police. He remains hospitalized Saturday.