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Robbery Suspect Wounded in Confrontation With Deputies

The shooting Monday before 9:30 a.m. prompted the lockdown of Davis Middle School.

An 18-year-old robbery suspect was wounded in a confrontation with deputies who had been following him in an unmarked detective car, authorities said.

It happened Monday before 9:30 a.m., and resulted in a temporary lockdown at Davis Middle School. Its athletic field is bordered by Spruce Street, where the pursuit ended and the gunfire erupted.

The unmarked detective car was the closest Los Angeles County Sheriff's vehicle when the report came in of armed robbery at the Hogan Mini Mart at the corner of Spruce and Wilmington Avenue. At some point, as the suspect vehicle looped around the block, the deputies spotted it, followed until it stopped, and then attempted to detain the occupants, according to a statement issued by the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department.

"The driver of the suspect vehicle produced a firearm, at which point a deputy involved shooting occurred," said Sheriff's Lt. Rodney Moore.

Both the wounded driver and his passenger ran off, Moore said. Deputies captured the suspected driver, 18, a block to the north on Rosecrans Avenue.

He was taken to a hospital in undisclosed condition. The suspected passenger, 17, was located and arrested in the residential neighborhood north of Rosecrans, according to Moore. He said deputies also recovered a handgun believed to be the one used by the driver.

One deputy suffered a wound to the forehead that was not the result of gunfire, Moore said.  The later statement described it as a cut above an eye.

The suspect vehicle came to rest on the sidewalk of Spruce Street with visible damage, the driver's door bent forward to ther fender. 

The stolen cash box could be seen with an evidence marker next to it in the driveway of the minimart.

The area is only five blocks from where a drive-by shooting last week claimed the life of Richard Jefferson, 65, father of the NBA pro basketball veteran of the same name who played on the 2016 Cleveland Cavaliers NBA championship team.

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