DailyMail | Los Angeles police have been accused of resorting to 'street justice' in the hunt for suspected killer ex-cop Christopher Dorner, after they mistakenly shot a 71-year-old woman delivering newspapers and left her truck riddled with bullets.
The victim, Emma Hernandez, said the officers did not give any warning or commands and just began firing at her blue pickup truck, according to her attorney. Her 47-year-old daughter was a passenger in the car at the time.
'Tragically, we believe this is a case of mistaken identity,' Charlie Beck, chief of the Los Angeles Police Department, said about the incident.
Hernandez was shot twice in the back and was hospitalized in stable condition. Her daughter, Margie Carranza, was a passenger in the truck at the time of the shooting. She was wounded by glass from the shattered window.
The two women were distributing copies of the Los Angeles Times before the terrifying incident. They were driving an aqua blue Toyota Tacoma unlike the description of the Dorner's vehicle, a gray Nissan Titan.
When police began firing and gunshots entered through the back windshield of the truck, the terrified women just 'covered their faces and huddled down,' the attorney for the two victims told the Los Angeles Times.
The police gunfire came from officers who were protecting a department captain and his family who had been included on the fugitive's hit list.
Six LAPD officers who had fired at Hernandez's vehicle have been placed on administrative leave.
The women's lawyer, Glen Jonas, told the Times LAPD not follow protocol or the rules of engagement before they decided to exercise deadly force.
'With no warning, no command, or no instructions, LAPD opened fire on their vehicle,' Jonas said.
'This wasn't even close,' their attorney said.
'This was two petite Latina women versus a large black man, with a different vehicle, different color. The police didn't take the time to do the identification. They didn't give the "suspect" the opportunity to surrender. So the whole thing was just mishandled, and we expect that the city will acknowledge that and go from there.'
LAPD Cmdr. Andrew Smith says the department's Chief Charlie Beck met with the women in their Torrance home Saturday to apologize and tell them he had arranged for someone to donate a new pickup truck.
The truck will be donated early this week, Smith said.
