Police shot man, wounded fellow officer

A Southern California police officer shot and wounded a man who refused to drop what the officer thought could be a weapon and then also wounded a second officer who came to help, authorities said Saturday.

The La Verne Police Department officer had responded to a family disturbance around 3:30 a.m. Saturday when he confronted a man with “an unknown dark object in his hand,” which he believed was a weapon, Los Angeles County sheriff’s investigators said.

The officer ordered the man to drop it, but the man didn’t comply with the order and approached the officer, prompting the officer to shoot him at least once, investigators said.

After he fired his gun, the officer realized the man did not have a weapon, the sheriff’s department said.

The man continued to approach the officer, who then tried to use a stun gun, but the man “continued to advance toward the officer in a threatening manner despite being ordered to stop,” the department said.

The man then reached for his waistband and “made a threatening statement” before the officer began firing again, striking the man in the upper torso, investigators said.

A second police officer who had responded to scene was also struck by the gunfire, sheriff’s official said. The officer, who was struck in the lower torso, suffered non-life-threatening injuries.