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Suspect shot in struggle with Los Banos police dies
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LOS BANOS— A man who broke into his estranged wife’s home died and two police officers were wounded after a shooting erupted Monday inside an apartment in the western Stanislaus County farming town of Los Banos, authorities said.
The officers were in stable condition at Modesto-area hospitals, Los Banos Police Chief Gary Brizzee said.
All three were taken by helicopter to hospitals.
A child of the 39-year-old man, who has not been identified, called authorities early Monday to report her father had broken into the family’s apartment through a window, Brizzee said.
An officer entered the apartment in Los Banos and asked the man, who hadn’t lived with his family for at least a year, to step outside so they could speak. The man refused and became argumentative, and a struggle with the officer began, he said.
The officer used his stun gun. But it failed to subdue the man, and he continued to resist him, the police chief said.
A second officer arrived, another struggle occurred and at that point both officers and the suspect were shot, Brizzee said.
The first officer to enter the apartment was shot once in the upper torso. He has been with the department for a year. The second officer, a 6-year-veteran, was shot in the calf, torso and in the head, Brizzee said.
The department had dealt with the man a few years ago on a drug-related case, he said.
Brizzee wouldn’t say whether the officers were shot with one of their guns.
“This has been a tremendously tough day for us. We will get through this together,” Brizzee during a brief news conference.
Crime scene investigators worked all day at the shooting scene at an apartment building, where two police cruisers were encircled in yellow crime-scene ribbon.
The investigation is ongoing, Brizzee said.