LONG BEACH, Calif.—A 31-year-old man who authorities said is homeless and suspected of assaulting multiple people in Long Beach and stabbing two others was shot by Long Beach Police Department officers but is expected to survive, police said Wednesday.
The shooting occurred shortly before noon Tuesday near Second Street and Quincy Avenue, according to the police department.
According to police, officers originally responded to the area of Second Street and Park Avenue on a report of somebody possibly stabbing multiple people.
On further investigation, police determined that two people—a man and a woman—had not been stabbed, but only assaulted or struck by the suspect, who walked a short distance away and assaulted a man in Livingston Park who was holding a 2-year-old child, causing the man to drop the child and fall to the ground, police said. The suspect then stabbed the victim several times in the lower body.
The man and the woman were treated at the scene by Long Beach Fire Department paramedics for lacerations and paramedics also treated the man with the child in the park.
The suspect then walked away and then stabbed a man in the upper body near Second Street, according to police.
Police caught up to the suspect near Second Street and Quincy Avenue where he allegedly ignored officers’ orders to drop the weapon and tried to run into a home, prompting at least one officer to open fire, striking the suspect once in the upper body.
Witnesses told police a number of good Samaritans came into the air of the man and the child in the park and tried to subdue the suspect.
No officers were injured. The screwdriver allegedly wielded by the suspect was recovered by police at the site of the shooting.
The suspect and one of the men who was stabbed were both taken to a hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, police said.
None of the assault victims, including the 2-year-old child, were seriously injured and none were hospitalized.
Police said the suspect would likely be booked on suspicion of attempted murder, once he is released from the hospital.
A resident told the Long Beach Post he was at his home near Livingston Drive and Park Avenue when he heard a commotion coming from nearby Livingston Park, and when he looked over at the park, he saw what appeared to be a man punching someone else continuously while other park-goers screamed.
The man left the scene toward Second Street and eventually, the resident said, he heard multiple gunshots, according to the Long Beach Post.
Anyone with information regarding this case was asked to call Homicide detectives Oscar Valenzuela or Leticia Gamboa at 562-570-7244.
