A Black man was shot and wounded after he tried to walk into a Los Angeles police station in Pico-Union with what appeared to be a handgun Tuesday, in the department’s sixth shooting since last Tuesday, officials said.
Authorities have not described what prompted the use of lethal force at the department’s Olympic Division station, at 1130 Vermont Ave., around 2:20 p.m.
Sgt. Bruce Borihanh said an officer who spoke with the man as he tried to enter noticed he was armed. The officer summoned reinforcements, and at least one officer opened fire.
But LAPD Chief Michel Moore told the Associated Press that officials were still working to determine whether the semi-automatic firearm recovered at the scene was real or a replica.
The man was struck and transported to a hospital. He underwent surgery and was later listed in critical condition, the department said in a tweet.
LAPD was not immediately releasing any information on how many shots were fired, or how many times the man was struck.
The man shot was described only as being Black and in his 30s.
The investigation remained active late Tuesday afternoon.
Tuesday’s shooting comes on the heels of five others the department’s officers carried out over the past week.
There were two shootings on both Tuesday and Thursday. Suspects were wounded in both of Thursday’s incidents, including a man allegedly seen carrying a hammer and small hatchet in Westlake and a driver accused of exiting his car with a gun following a pursuit.
Last Tuesday, SWAT officers fatally shot a man who’d barricaded himself in a University Park home after reports of a rifle being shot into the air. One of the officers was also wounded in the face in that incident, but he was expected to survive.
And later last Tuesday, officers wounded a man who had allegedly attacked his roommate with a knife.
On Wednesday, also in El Sereno, an off-duty lieutenant fired his handgun at a moving car after allegedly seeing its occupants carry out a drive-by shooting. One man was wounded in the drive-by shooting, but it was unclear if the lieutenant’s bullets struck anyone, the Los Angeles Times reported.
Moore addressed the spate of shootings at a Police Commission meeting Tuesday, calling it “striking.” But he did not say the department would look into the trend, saying the incidents are under review but will be handled separately, according to the Times.