Police Fatally Shoot Suspect in Robbery

A Glendale police officer investigating an armed robbery shot and killed one of the suspects after the man tried to run the officer down in a Boyle Heights alley, police said Wednesday.

The 22-year-old man, whose name was not released, died early Wednesday at County/USC Medical Center, Glendale police spokesman Rick Young said. Young said Glendale police are investigating the matter as an officer-involved shooting.

Two Glendale officers had gone to Boyle Heights late Tuesday looking for two suspects--the man who was later killed, and a 29-year-old woman--in last week’s shooting and robbery of a woman who was making a bank deposit, Young said.

Officers saw the man and woman about 11:25 p.m. in a Ford Bronco in a long alley between Wabash Avenue and Folsom Street, Young said. One of the officers left the police car to approach the Bronco on foot, he said.

The man drove the Bronco toward one of the officers, a 17-year veteran, Young said. The officer fired eight shots at the driver, Glendale City Atty. Scott Howard said.

“He was scared for his life so he fired several rounds into the windshield,” Young said. “He jumped out of the way as the suspect’s vehicle raced by him, brushing alongside of him.”

Although the driver was mortally wounded, he didn’t stop, authorities said. Young said the officer got into his car and chased the Bronco until it crashed into a telephone pole six blocks away.

Glendale police did not release the names of the man and woman or the officers involved, citing an “ongoing criminal investigation with other possible outstanding suspects.”

A spokesman for the Los Angeles County coroner’s office said the identity of the man killed had not been confirmed.

About 15 minutes before the fatal shooting, Young said, a third suspect was arrested in Temple City in connection with the Jan. 27 Glendale robbery. Detectives said about $3,000 was stolen after a woman taking deposits from a hair salon to a Glendale bank was followed and shot four times. She was reported in fair condition at a Pasadena hospital Wednesday.

The pair arrested Tuesday were booked on suspicion of attempted murder, Young said, with bail set at $500,000.

Los Angeles police are investigating the incident as an assault with a deadly weapon [the vehicle] against the Glendale officers. LAPD spokesman Ed Funes said police officers often cross into areas patrolled by other law enforcement agencies as they conduct investigations.