Deputy shot during California shootout with robbery suspect

LYNWOOD >> A Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy was struck by a bullet Monday night during a shootout with a robbery suspect, authorities said.

Doctors removed the bullet from the deputy’s upper body during surgery, the sheriff’s department said. The deputy is expected to survive.

Around 7 p.m. in the city of Lynwood, south of Los Angeles, a resident flagged down deputies and said he’d been robbed at gunpoint. The victim said the suspects had been in a black Dodge Ram pickup truck, according to the sheriff’s department.

As the deputies were talking to the man, they spotted the pickup truck.

They later found it in a cul-de-sac, and the truck made a U-turn and drove toward the deputies. The suspect began shooting at the deputies, who got out of their vehicle and fired back, the sheriff’s department said.

Several rounds of bullets were exchanged, during which the deputy was hit. Authorities detained one suspect, whose name has not been released, and recovered three handguns.

Deputies then discovered that a second suspect had fled in a white pickup truck, the sheriff’s department said, which they pursued until the truck was involved in a traffic collision.

The suspect, whose name also has not been made public, got out of the truck after the crash.