Seventeen rounds. That’s not a guess. That’s what investigators pulled off the pavement in cartridge casings after Marco Flores turned and opened fire on officers chasing him down a residential street in Hollenbeck.
Two patrol vehicles took hits. One officer took a round to the chest. His vest did its job. He’s alive because of it.
What you just saw started as a parked truck and a guy standing in the street. Newton Division officers were on patrol near Washington and Alameda when they spotted a pedestrian next to the driver’s door of a gray Toyota Tacoma. Nothing unusual about that on its face. Officers got out to check it out.
That’s when they saw the gun in the driver’s hand.
Flores took off the second officers moved to detain him. What followed wasn’t a short chase. It was miles — surface streets, a stretch on the 101, a U-turn back into traffic, officers losing him and finding him again within a minute. An air unit picked up the track when ground units couldn’t keep pace. This wasn’t a man panicking and running in a straight line. This was a man working the geography, using the freeway, using a U-turn, using every trick he had to shake the units behind him.
It ended the way these usually do. He clipped a fence trying to make a turn he couldn’t make at that speed. Vehicle disabled. Flores got out and ran.
Officers pursued on foot. Flores turned and fired.
Graham v. Connor gives us three questions, and they matter here because this is exactly the kind of incident where hindsight likes to rewrite the tape. Severity of the offense. Active resistance. Immediate threat.
At the moment officers made the decision to fire, none of that is ambiguous. This isn’t a case of a suspect who might have had something in his waistband, or a shadow in a doorway, or a hand moving too fast to read. Flores had a handgun out, and he was actively firing it at the officers behind him. Seventeen rounds isn’t a warning shot. That’s a man trying to kill police officers.
The officer’s ballistic vest took one of those rounds. That’s not a detail — that’s the difference between a use-of-force review and a funeral.
Officers returned fire, struck Flores, and the threat ended. He fell, dropped the weapon, and officers took him into custody without further incident.
There is no gray area in the decision to fire back. A man shooting at you while you’re chasing him down a residential street is the textbook immediate threat Graham v. Connor was written to address.
Two patrol vehicles took rounds. That tells you Flores wasn’t firing wild into the air. He was aiming at the units and the officers behind him. Seventeen rounds fired in that kind of exchange, and only one round found an officer, and that round hit the vest — that’s not an accident either. That’s officers using cover, moving tactically, and training holding up under live fire from a suspect trying to kill them.
Flores was struck multiple times, went down, and dropped the weapon — a 9mm semi-automatic IMI Baby Desert Eagle, recovered at the scene. He underwent surgery and is listed in critical but stable condition, expected to survive.
The Toyota Tacoma he was driving was confirmed stolen. Flores was booked for attempted murder on a police officer.
The officer struck in the chest was treated for non-life-threatening injuries and released.
LAPD did a great job on this one.
