The Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department has identified the shooter who ambushed and shot two deputies as they sat in a patrol unit outside a Metro bus station in Compton on Saturday.
The suspect’s name has not been released and he/she is not yet in custody, Fox News reported Tuesday.
LASD deputy Claudia Apolinar, 31, was shot in the jaw. Her 24-year-old male colleague was shot in the head. Both officers are recovering from emergency surgery in stable but serious condition.
Apolinar’s 65-year-old father Adolfo has held a bedside vigil for his daughter. She is a former librarian and the mother of a 6-year-old boy. “I’m here with her right now,” he told a reporter in Spanish. He added that an LA Sheriff’s Department deputy was standing guard outside her hospital room.
Apolinar and her colleague graduated from the police academy last year.
A 33-year-old father of two was mistakenly identified as the shooter in a police BOLO (Be On the Lookout) alert issued on Monday.
Darrell Hicks, a youth football coach, was described as “armed and dangerous” and incorrectly stated he was wanted for the attempted murder of two LA County deputies.
It is unclear how Hicks’ name and photo ended up on the BOLO alert. Hicks said he received death threats on social media after he was named as the gunman.
Hicks said he was out riding a dirt bike all day Saturday and had nothing to do with the shooting. An attorney with the Cochran Group law firm is representing Hicks.
“Any person would suffer greatly when falsely accused of a crime, especially a crime as heinous as this,” said attorney Brian Dunn.
Hicks said he is afraid to take his 2 daughters outside, and he believes that his neighbors look at him differently now.
LA County Sheriff Alex Villanueva said the BOLO circulating on social media was erroneous. He offered a $200,000 award for information leading to the capture of the suspect.
Villanueva challenged NBA star LeBron James to match his award. The sheriff said, as of Tuesday morning, there has been no response from James.
