Both Los Angeles County Sheriff’s deputies wounded in an ambush shooting in Compton have been discharged from the hospital and have a “long road to recovery” ahead, officials said Monday.
The two deputies were in a marked patrol vehicle on the evening of Sept. 12, stopped across the street from the Blue Line Metro station at 275 N. Willowbrook Ave., when a man approached and fired multiple times into the window, hitting them both.
The brazen attack spurred a manhunt for the gunman, with a reward of at least $300,000 offered for information leading to an arrest and conviction. Hundreds of thousands more are also pledged for the reward from private donors.
The female deputy, a 31-year-old mother, and the 24-year-old male deputy suffered gunshot wounds — both in the head — before they got out of the patrol car and hid behind a column, where they helped each other with their injuries, officials said.
“He’s bleeding out profusely from the arm so she actually applies a tourniquet to his arm to stop the bleeding and she tries to call for help on the radio,” L.A. County Sheriff Alex Villanueva said last week. “It’s pretty heart-wrenching and she’s trying to mumble and we finally get her … she says where she is at and the fact that there was a shooting, and that got all the help rolling in her direction.”
Both deputies underwent surgery, and the male deputy was released from the hospital four days after the shooting.
The Sheriff’s Department released photos of the other deputy at the intensive care unit on Saturday. “A week ago today, a callous and heartless criminal attempted to murder two of the heroes that work hard everyday to keep you safe,” officials from the department’s Transit Services Bureau said.
President Donald Trump called both deputies last week to “check on their spirits, wish them a speedy recovery and remind them that the #american people are behind them and that the coward that harmed them will be brought to #justice,” the Sheriff’s Department said in a Facebook post.
Because of her injuries, the deputy had to write down her responses during the call, and a sheriff’s sergeant read them to the president, officials said.
A GoFundMe page was set up to help the deputies with medical expenses and other costs for their families. It had garnered more than $716,600 as of Monday.
The sheriff said investigators are pursuing promising leads in their search for the gunman.
Officials described the shooter as a man between the ages of 28 and 30. He was seen wearing dark clothing. The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department Homicide Bureau said he was seen getting into a black, four-door sedan after the shooting.
