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04
Apr 2011
LAPD prepared to wait out shooting suspect barricaded in Sylmar home [Updated]
LAPD SWAT officers in Sylmar. Al Seib / Los Angeles Times

LAPD SWAT officers in Sylmar. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)

SWAT teams were waiting Monday for the surrender of a man who had barricaded himself in a Sylmar home after a Los Angeles police officer was shot in the face.

[Updated at 10:07 a.m.: Officers fired tear gas into the home about 9:45 a.m., but the suspect has not responded.]

Dozens of officers were surrounding the home in the 13600 block of Dronfield Avenue, hoping the shooting suspect would give himself up, said Lt. Any Neiman, a Los Angeles Police Department spokesman.

Officers detected movement inside the home around 9 a.m. but the armed man refused to answer his house or cellphone as officers attempted to make contact, Neiman said.

[Updated at 10:35 a.m. The suspect was seen inside the house after the tear gas was deployed. Several rounds were fired at the officers from the home and the officers returned fire, Neiman said. No officers were hit. It was unknown if the suspect was hit.

Officers at the time were not trying to enter the house. The suspect was seen moving upstairs and downstairs in the house after the exchange of gunfire. Police were firing a more intense type of tear gas called "hot gas" into the house in an attempt to force him out.]

The suspect is described as a 50-year-old man who lives in the two-story, single-family home with his wife and two dogs. Police were called to assist the wife around 10:30 p.m. Sunday.

They found the woman with cuts and bruises at a neighbor's home and saw her husband driving up and down the gated neighborhood looking for her, Neiman said.

When the man went home, police assembled outside the residence and were shot at from inside the home, he said. Veteran LAPD officer Steven Jenkins was struck in the shoulder and jaw, and was transported to a nearby hospital for surgery.

He is in stable condition and is expected to survive, the police spokesman said. Jenkins, a 22-year-veteran of the LAPD and a canine officer, was joined at the hospital by his wife, who is a police sergeant, and son, who is a police officer, authorities said. Police have evacuated neighbors from around the suspect's residence and are keeping media two blocks away. Dozens of uniformed and plain-clothed officers surrounded the scene while news helicopters swirled overhead.

The neighborhood is a mixture of '50s-era ranch style homes and the newer single-family homes inside a gated community where the suspect lives.

"This could be a very long process,'' Neiman said.

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