2 Huntington Beach police officers injured in scuffle with man with knife

Two Huntington Beach police officers and an allegedly knife-wielding suspect were injured Thursday in a confrontation that erupted into an officer-involved shooting.

Officers responded shortly after 7 a.m. to Delaware Street and Utica Avenue on reports of a man with a knife, with one caller saying the man was "possibly slashing tires with a knife,'' Police Chief Robert Handy said.

"One of the callers said that the person running around with the knife was talking about a sharpshooter and that he was a sharpshooter or something to that effect,'' Handy said. "When our officers arrived in the area, they were on foot searching for the suspect. They found him between two homes in a walkway, and an officer-involved shooting ensued.

"... Two of our officers were injured in the gunfire. Both of them thankfully received minor injuries,'' the chief said. "They're both being treated and will be released this morning from local hospitals. I just visited with both of them. They're both in good spirits and their injuries are -- for gunshot wounds they're relatively minor. So both officers are doing well.''

Handy said the suspect was also shot and was being treated for non-life-threatening injuries. His name was not released.

The chief said a knife was recovered at the scene, but it was unclear if the suspect had a gun, or if the officers may have been shot in a case of "friendly fire.''

"All of this information I'm talking about is very preliminary,'' he said. "We don't understand yet exactly what happened. So we get information from multiple sources when we start these things and get the investigation going. So all that's under investigation.

"What we do know now is there's a knife recovered from the suspect at the scene and the investigators are looking to see if he had another kind of weapon or any of that,'' Handy said.

Wounded by ricocheting bullets or fragments of stucco or some other material ? Yes and yes. It is, as police like to say, "under investigation."

Orange County sheriff's detectives were sent to investigate the shooting, as is the normal protocol, according to the sheriff's department.

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