Clinging to Truck, Officer Shoots Driver

A Van Nuys man was shot by a Los Angeles police officer Tuesday in a Sepulveda mini-mall parking lot as he tried to drive his pickup truck away with the officer clinging to one of its doors, police said.

Mark Feo, 30, of Van Nuys was treated at Holy Cross Hospital in Mission Hills and transferred to the jail ward at County-USC Medical Center, where he was listed in serious but stable condition, Lt. William Hall said. Hall said Feo, shot once in the left side of the chest, will be charged with assault with a deadly weapon on a police officer.

Hall said two officers were sent to a mini-mall at the corner of Sepulveda and Roscoe boulevards about 10 a.m. after employees at Any Kind Check Cashing asked police to investigate a man trying to cash a check written on his mother’s bank account.

When officers arrived, the man ran from the check cashing business to a parked pickup truck, Hall said. The officers yelled at the man to stop, but he ignored them and jumped behind the wheel, Hall said.

Officer Trapped

After Officer Mark Snee, 37, opened the driver’s side door, Feo turned the ignition and put the truck in gear. With Snee trapped between the door and truck body, Feo backed the truck up 100 feet toward Roscoe Boulevard, Hall said.

“He got carried along as the truck sped across the parking lot backwards,” Hall said. Feo finally stopped after Snee, a 13-year police veteran, shot Feo once with his 9-millimeter pistol, Hall said.

Snee, complaining of soreness and bruised legs, was treated at Valley Medical Center in Van Nuys and released. The other officer, Mark Sommer, was not injured.

Hall said police do not know whether Feo tried to cash a forged check. He said employees at the check cashing business had grown suspicious of Feo because he recently cashed several checks written on his mother’s bank account.