GUNMAN KILLED IN STANDOFF; BOY HURT
A gunman who took a 6-year-old boy hostage was killed by police Tuesday night after a two-hour standoff and a brief gun battle at an El Monte Chinese restaurant.
The man, who police say snatched the child off a sidewalk and barricaded himself inside the restaurant, was declared dead at the eatery soon after gunshots were fired, according to Los Angeles County sheriff’s Sgt. Lt. Liam Gallagher.
The boy, who police say may be the gunman’s son, was also injured in the shootout. The boy was taken to a hospital, where he is in stable condition, Gallagher said.
Gallagher described the hostage-taker as a Latino man in his 30s who deputies believe may have been a suspect in a 2004 Hawthorne slaying.
Witnesses say the incident began about 3:20 p.m. in the parking lot at Santa Fe Plaza, a strip mall at 3580 Santa Anita Ave. in the heart of El Monte.
It ended about 5:30 p.m., when a flash-bang grenade exploded and gunshots echoed inside the building. Shortly afterward, authorities carried the boy out on a stretcher and put him in an ambulance.
Neither the boy nor the gunman, who wore a camouflage jacket and blue jeans, were identified by police, who said it was unclear what the relationship was between the two.
Henry Villan, 35, was standing in the parking lot talking to a friend when he saw a man roughly dragging a young boy by his T-shirt.
“I just seen a guy taking a kid,” Villan said. At first, Villan thought nothing of it because he assumed that the man was the boy’s father.
“Sometimes you see bad parents,” Villan said.
An El Monte police officer who had been called to the scene to investigate reports of a transient man and a young boy approached the pair and told the man to let go of the boy, said El Monte Police Det. Ralph Batres. The man resisted and fled, pulling the boy with him.
With the boy in a headlock, and a gun held to the child’s head, the man tried to enter the El Sombrero Restaurant, according to a restaurant employee.
“He tried to come in the front door, and one of our waitresses came in screaming,” the employee said.
An employee barricaded the door to stop the man from entering. After six or seven tries, the man tried another door. When he couldn’t get in, he gave up and ran across the parking lot to Tai Pan Chinese Food, where he barricaded himself and the child in a bathroom.
About 100 officers arrived at the scene, and several SWAT officers entered the restaurant and tried to talk to the man.
During the negotiations, the man told police that he was getting tired and that he was going to harm the child, Gallagher said. When the man opened the door and opened fire at police, they killed him.
Police later discovered that the man had two handguns -- a semiautomatic pistol and a revolver.
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kate.linthicum@latimes.com
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