8 Are Hurt in Crash of Police Cars

Seven Los Angeles police officers and a person in a private vehicle were injured in a car crash as the police raced to the scene of a reported shooting in South Central Los Angeles late Wednesday, according to Los Angeles Police Department officials.

In an apparently unrelated incident about the same time, a 10-year-old child and a 12-year-old child were wounded in a shooting a few blocks away, authorities said. The condition of the children was not known.

According to preliminary reports, none of the officers involved in the crash was critically injured, although several were taken to area hospitals as a precaution.

Some of the officers “were pretty banged up, as you can imagine,” said LAPD South Bureau Chief Earl Paysinger.

Authorities said that the injured officers were from the LAPD’s 77th Street gang unit and the department’s Metro squads.

They were responding to a call for backup from officers at a reported shooting about 10:30 p.m., when their cars and a private vehicle collided at Broadway and Florence Avenue, just east of the Harbor Freeway.

Police released few details late Wednesday of that shooting, which occurred at 48th Street and Western Avenue.

They provided only a few details about the shooting involving the two children.

It took place at 62nd Street and Menlo Avenue, reportedly near an apartment building, and police took a suspect into custody shortly after the incident.

No other details on the shootings were immediately available, including the condition of the victims.