Body-worn camera footage released this week by the Long Beach Police Department gives the first detailed look at an intense, high-speed shootout that unfolded as officers chased a gunman along the 710 Freeway on Sept. 1.
The Long Beach Post obtained the 35-minute video through a public records request. You can view an edited-down version of it here:
The footage, from the perspective of one officer’s body camera, reveals that a driver fleeing from police fired an AK-47 at police vehicles chasing him. One officer returned fire, shooting through the windshield of the car he was riding in, but did not wound anyone. The chase ultimately ended when the driver exited the freeway in downtown Los Angeles and crashed into a steel fence on South Santa Fe Avenue near East 12th Street, shearing a fire hydrant and sending water shooting up into the underside of his car.
Police were chasing the gunman because of a shooting earlier that night. At about 12:23 a.m., multiple 911 callers reported gunfire in the parking lot behind the Aquarium of the Pacific. The remote area next to the Queens Way Bridge is off Golden Shore, just south of West Shoreline Drive.
One of the callers reported that his “friend” had shot him in the leg with an AK-47, then fled in a silver Honda sedan, according to the 911 call audio.
Another 911 caller said the shooter was “my cousin’s friend” and “we’ve known him for many years,” but didn’t offer any details on what sparked the shooting.
When paramedics arrived in the parking lot, they found three men in their 30s with non-life-threatening gunshot wounds to their lower bodies, according to Long Beach police. Paramedics took two to a hospital and treated one at the scene.
Roughly 20 minutes later, two officers spotted a silver Honda sedan near Pacific Avenue and Burnett Street. When they attempted to pull the car over, the driver fled and entered the northbound 710 Freeway.
While officers were chasing him, the driver fired the AK-47 multiple times out of the driver’s side window back at officers, according to police and prosecutors.
No one was hit by the gunfire or by the officer who returned fire. LBPD is conducting a “multi-level review” of the shooting, as it does with all officer-involved shootings,” spokesperson Eric Stachura wrote in an email.
Police identified the driver as 34-year-old Julian Gandarilla Ocampo, of Long Beach.
Gandarilla Ocampo was charged with five counts of attempted murder and one count each of evading police and owning an assault weapon.
He pleaded not guilty to all seven charges and was being held on $7.6 million bail.
If convicted of all charges, he could face multiple life sentences in prison.