The Los Angeles Sheriff fires at an elite shooter from an apartment building; always on the run

A sniper in a building in Los Angeles County opened fire on Wednesday afternoon on a sheriff's deputy located just outside his home.

The deputy, identified as 21-year-old Angel Reinosa, was shot in the Los Angeles County Sheriff Station Lancaster Station's bulletproof vest by someone in the building. on the other side of the street, which is a government-subsidized facility.

The shooting took place in Lancaster, about an hour north of downtown Los Angeles, around 2:45 pm local time.

"Think about what happened here: a sniper pulled out one of our deputies," said Lancaster Mayor R. Rex Parris, at a news conference. press conference. "And the only reason a member is alive is because he was wearing his jacket."

"He was preparing to take off that vest," he added. "If he did, the situation would have been much more tragic."

The suspect is still on the run, the authorities said Thursday. The sheriff's deputies cleaned up the building at night and did not find the person. The suspect has not been named and it is difficult to know where he lives in the building.

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Reinosa was treated and discharged from the hospital and there was no sting injury.

He has been at the sheriff's office for about a year and at the Lancaster station for just three months, officials said.

Sgt. Benjamin Grubb, from the L.A. County Sheriff's Department Information Office, called the shooting a "despicable assault."

Parris was critical of a mental health facility, Mental Health America of Los Angeles, which shares a parking lot with the building. However, the apartments provide housing for a variety of low and middle income residents and those who were previously homeless. according to the Los Angeles Times.

"It's not just a four-story building, it's a four-storey government-subsidized building for people with mental illness," Parris said. "I mean, let's call it that, why do you put mentally ill people in a four-story building across from the sheriff's department?"

A school spokesman told ABC ABC station in KABC that the mental health facility is in the same complex, but that it is separate from the apartments, which are not not specifically intended for patients.

"They let people with mental illness live in our apartment complex," KABC Terrisa McGhee, who lives in the complex, told KABC. "It's a little scary because there is no security on the site 24 hours a day. The management is never there when things go on. The cops are there all the time. This is not a surprise. "

It is not known if the suspect is a patient.

Timmy Truong and Marilyn Heck of ABC News contributed to this report.