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Toddler killed as dad shoots at police

LOS ANGELES - A toddler girl was shot and killed when her intoxicated father used her as a shield during a fiery gunbattle with police after a standoff that lasted about three hours, authorities said.

Police Chief William Bratton said Monday that his officers were well within department policy when they shot carwash owner Jose Raul Pena, 34, on Sunday.

Susie Lopez, 19 months, and Pena were killed; an officer was shot in the shoulder but was expected to recover.

Susie was the second hostage to die during 4,000 SWAT operations by the Los Angeles Police Department in 38 years.

"You aren't going to stand there with somebody shooting at you," Bratton said. "The person responsible for any loss of life ... was the individual who held his child out as a shield and continued to shoot."

The 19-month-old child's mother, Lorena Lopez, said she pleaded with officers to hold their fire.

"He had problems with depression, his business was not doing well," Lopez told KNBC-TV. "I told them that he needed help, he needs a psychologist, but please don't shoot. They didn't understand, and the police fired, like, 300 shots."

Police said Pena fired about 40 rounds in three shooting outbursts over nearly three hours. Eleven officers shot about 90 rounds, Bratton said.

Autopsies will determine whether the bullet that killed the toddler was fired by police or her father.

One neighbor, Raul Orduna, 35, said Pena was waving a gun, with the child in the other arm.

"He was holding the kid like right in front of him," Orduna said Monday morning.

The standoff started when officers responded at 3:50 p.m. to an intersection in South Los Angeles where Pena was behaving erratically and aggressively.

Pena was embroiled in "a family dispute" that triggered his bizarre behavior Sunday night, Lt. Paul Vernon said Monday morning. Pena's rampage may have been spurred by a custody battle, Vernon said, but declined to give details.

Pena fired at the officers and ran inside a fenced area that included his apartment and his carwash and detailing business. He had a 9mm handgun and a shotgun and was intoxicated on drugs and alcohol, police said.

"His firing was indiscriminate," Vernon said.

Hostage negotiators arrived, and negotiations with Pena continued for nearly two hours as members of the special weapons and tactics team communicated with him by phone. The department also used psychologists and crisis specialists and gave Pena numerous opportunities to surrender, Assistant Chief Jim McDonnell said.

Just after 5 p.m., as officers helped a neighbor safely escape, he fired at them and they fired back, police said.

About 6:20 p.m., Pena emerged from the building with the toddler. He was again firing erratically, hitting the officer in the shoulder.

As other officers moved in to rescue their wounded colleague, police exchanged gunfire with Pena. The girl also was hit.

The officers were "traumatized," Bratton said, by the fact that the child was slain.

--Information from the Los Angeles Times was used in this report.

[Last modified July 12, 2005, 10:55:22]