Los Angeles police shoot, wound man during fight for Taser

Los Angeles police have shot and critically wounded a man they say shocked an officer with his own stun-gun during a confrontation.

Officers were sent to La Brea Avenue and Eighth Street on a report of a person breaking out store windows with a skateboard, Madison said.

They spotted a man matching the suspect’s description but he fled on a skateboard.

One of the two officers deployed a Taser and pressed it against the man’s body, but it didn’t appear to have any effect on him.

Both officers were treated for injuries.

Witness Patrick Comiskey told The Los Angeles Times (http://lat.ms/1TojM34 ) that he saw officers trying to subdue a man who appeared to be homeless on the steps of a building.

The condition of the man was unknown. “They were trying to put his hands behind his back, that’s what it looked like to me”. He didn’t hear any words exchanged. “At some point during the struggle, the suspect was able to gain control of the Taser, turned it against one of the officers and use it again in the direct contact mode on the officer’s leg. That officer alerted the partner that they were being tased”, LAPD Cmdr.

Officers have since said there was a skateboard recovered at the scene, but it is unclear what the man did with it before the shooting.

“It was virtually point blank – he was at most two feet away”, said Comiskey, a wine critic who lives about two blocks away. Comiskey then heard a gunshot.

Update [4:00]: L.A. Times reporter Kate Mather says the LAPD no longer believes the man used the skateboard to attack officers, and was off the board before the incident.

It was the sixth shooting by police or sheriff’s deputies in Los Angeles County in the past week. Five of those shootings were fatal.