A machete-wielding man was shot and critically injured by police outside an Orange County hospital on Wednesday morning after a dramatic road rage incident, authorities said.
UCI Health in Los Alamitos was on lockdown for several hours as a result of the incident, according to reporting from OnScene.TV.
The Long Beach Police Department responded around 10 a.m. to a reported DUI and road rage incident that began in the city and ended near the hospital in Los Alamitos. While behind the wheel, the suspect allegedly struck a Long Beach Fire Department vehicle that was transporting a patient, the Police Department said in an emailed statement to The Times.
Officers said the driver abandoned his car in Los Alamitos and fled on foot. Police established a perimeter in the vicinity of the hospital and activated SWAT resources.
There were several responding agencies, including the Los Alamitos, Long Beach and Cypress police departments.
During the incident, crisis negotiators tried to reason with the suspect, said Robert Acosta, Los Alamitos police spokesperson, according to reporting from OnScene.TV. Those efforts were unsuccessful, he said, so officers began firing so-called less-lethal rounds.
Video of the scene from the public safety app Citizen shows the confrontation at the hospital between police and the suspect. A shirtless man is seen yelling and waving a machete at officers who are firing the less-lethal rounds at the suspect. At one point, the man charges the officers and ducks out of view behind several cars as shots ring out.
Bystanders can be heard screaming in the background as the incident plays out.
The suspect was hit by police gunfire and was transported to a trauma center nearby, according to authorities.
Acosta said the suspect was in critical but stable condition and undergoing surgery Wednesday afternoon, ABC7 reported.
The officers involved in the shooting were not from the Long Beach Police Department, the agency said in the statement.
Acosta said that officers from two of the police agencies on scene had fired their weapons multiple times.
The Orange County district attorney’s office could not immediately be reached for comment.
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