UPDATE: Back from the freeway shooting scene in Hawthorne

Detectives are still investigating the shooting scene on the Century Freeway in Hawthorne.

Here's what sheriff's Sgt. John Hocking told the crowd of reporters -- me among them -- out there:

Deputies said that for some reason, a 19-year-old Inglewood man drove erratically, trying to collide with another car driven by an off-duty sheriff's deputy. The deputy was off-duty and heading home east on the freeway.

When the deputy believed he had hit the other car, he pulled away from it and stopped on the shoulder. The Inglewood man then drove up, parked in front of him, and attacked the deputy with the knife, Hocking said.

The deputy announced he was a cop, and ordered the man to drop the knife, but the Inglewood man didn't.
The deputy then shot him.

The deputy was unhurt. The suspect underwent surgery and is expected to survive.

Here's my first story on dailybreeze.com. Hopefully sheriff's deputies will provide an update later.

(Photo by Sean Hiller)