The Region - News from May 8, 1987

A Los Angeles police officer shot and wounded a man after mistaking the toy gun the victim was carrying for a real one, authorities said. Marlon Miller, 19, was in serious but stable condition at Daniel Freeman Memorial Hospital with a chest wound, Police Sgt. Sid Nuckles said. Officer Carlton Lawrence and his partner had gone to the 3400 block of South La Brea Avenue to check out a report of a man with a gun, Nuckles said. Witnesses told police Miller and a 15-year-old companion had been pointing a gun at passing motorists. The officers found Miller, the youth and another man standing in a phone booth on Rodeo Road. When officers ordered Miller to “freeze,” Miller first ran and then stopped, whirling to face the officer as he raised his shirt and drew a gun from his waistband, Nuckles said. “Officer Lawrence believed Miller was preparing to shoot him,” Nuckles said, and fired one round. Police later found that Miller’s gun was a plastic replica of a .45-caliber semiautomatic pistol.