Long Beach Officer Shot Twice During Routine Traffic Stop : Crime: A massive door-to-door search is launched for suspects in the city’s most serious police shooting in 16 years.

A Long Beach police officer who was shot twice while handling a routine traffic stop was in surgery Friday at Long Beach Memorial Medical Center while authorities scrambled to round up suspects in the city’s most serious officer shooting in 16 years, police said.

The officer, whose name was being withheld, was impounding a car in a crime-marred section of North Long Beach when an apparent passerby walked up from behind the patrol car, drew a handgun and fired three shots through the glass at the officer seated inside, according to police and witnesses.

One witness said he and a friend saw the assailant near 49th Street and Grisham Avenue run away, then watched the disoriented officer drive about 10 feet into a wall before they could rush to the window to check his condition.

“He was dazed--I don’t think he knew where he was,” the witness said. “We were asking, ‘Are you OK?’ He wouldn’t answer. We were yelling for an ambulance. He didn’t say anything.”

The witness, who said he did not recall the appearance of the attacker, had been watching the officer operate what appeared to be a console computer in the patrol car when the gunman fired shots, one of which struck the officer’s head.

The incident occurred at 1:50 p.m. in a neighborhood blocks from Long Beach’s exclusive Virginia Country Club, but in an area marred by other recent shootings, according to neighbors.

Long Beach Police Officer Margarita DeWitt said detectives were interviewing several suspects and several witnesses late Friday, trying to piece together details of the incident.

Of those, four people were taken into custody by 5 p.m. for questioning, according to Cmdr. Anthony Batts, who was at the scene.

Batts declined to say whether any of those people were believed to be the attacker.

Officers were going door to door, looking for suspects, Batts said.

It was possible the assailant had one or more accomplices, but police were unsure about that, he added.

DeWitt said at least one of the shots was believed to have hit the patrolman in the chest.

“We haven’t had, really, a big shooting (of an officer) in 16 years,” DeWitt said. “We’ve had accidents and things, but nothing of this magnitude.”

The attack occurred less than six months after the shooting deaths of two Compton police officers.

Since 1985, at least 23 police officers in Los Angeles County have been killed by gunfire in the line of duty, and others have been seriously injured.

DeWitt said Long Beach police had cordoned off a large area near the attack and were deploying SWAT teams, homicide detectives and police helicopters in a massive effort to find the assailant.

“I think the whole department’s out there,” she said.