(Reuters) – As the manhunt for the lone gunman who ambushed and shot two Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies enters its third day, authorities are offering a $100,000 reward for information that leads to an arrest and conviction.
Video footage of the shooting showed a man walk up to a parked patrol car on Saturday evening at a transit station in the Compton community and fire a pistol into the passenger side of the squad car. The man then ran away.
Both deputies received critical head wounds, but both are expected to survive, police said. The deputies are described as a 31-year-old female officer who is a mother and a 24-year-old man, police said.
“We’ll see what the long-term impact is. We don’t know that yet, but they survived the worst,” Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva told reporters on Sunday.
“We would like to offer our sincerest appreciation for the overwhelming support being offered from all over the Nation,” he wrote on Twitter.
The reward was offered late Sunday by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors.
A few demonstrators gathered overnight Saturday outside St. Francis Medical Center in Lynwood where the deputies were being treated, according to social media video and the sheriff’s department, blocking the entrance and chanting anti-police slogans.
Two people were later arrested, including a journalist who was later released.
The description of the shooter still remains vague.
“At this point we have a very, very generic description of adark-skinned male and that came from one of the victims,”Captain Kent Wegener told a news conference Sunday.
President Donald Trump retweeted the video early on Sundayand wrote: “Animals that must be hit hard!”
Later, referring to the deputies, Trump tweeted: “If theydie, fast trial death penalty for the killer. Only way to stopthis!”
Former Vice President Joe Biden, Trump’s Democratic rival in for Nov. 3 presidential election, called for the gunman to face “the full brunt of the law.”
(Reporting by Rich McKay in Atlanta)
