A third person was reportedly shot at because police believed he was suspected cop killer and fugitive Christopher Dorner.
David Perdue was on his way to catch some waves on Thursday morning when, according to his lawyer, a Torrance, Calif. police cruiser "slammed into his pickup and officers opened fire," reports the Los Angeles Times.
The bullets missed Perdue, but his attorney, Robert Sheahen, said his client suffered a concussion and hurt his shoulder, making it temporarily impossible for him to work at his job as a baggage handler at LAX. Perdue's car was also totaled, Sheahen told the Times.
The Torrance Police Department said the incident was a case of mistaken identity. Officers thought Perdue's truck was Dorner's pickup.
The department issued this statement to the Times:
"The circumstances of the incident known to the responding officers would have led a reasonable officer under normal circumstances -- and these were far from normal circumstances -- to believe that fellow officers were being shot at and that the vehicle traveling toward them posed a serious risk.
"In the split seconds available to them," the statement continued, "action was appropriate to intervene and stop the actions of the driver of that vehicle."