A SWAT officer was killed and a second was injured in a gunbattle with a barricaded suspect this morning in Winnetka. We're following this one closely. We've got a photographer at the hospital where cops are gathered and a reporter is heading out to the scene of the home where we're hearing that the suspect is still inside the home. Don't know if he's dead or alive. We'll keep you posted.

WINNETKA - A man who had telephoned authorities to say he had killed three family members shot to death an LAPD SWAT officer today and wounded another during a gunbattle inside a Winnetka home, police said.

It was the first fatality in the history of the elite LAPD SWAT team, which was created in 1967.

Officer Randy Simmons died at 1 a.m. James Veenstra was injured, police said this morning. Both worked on the SWAT team for 20 years.

At 5 a.m., the man remained barricaded inside the home in 19800 block Welby Way, First-Assistant police Chief Jim McDonnell said in a briefing outside Northridge Medical Center on Roscoe Blvd. in Northridge.

Some 200 officers, included SWAT team members, surrounded the residence in a standoff that McDonnell referred to as an ongoing "dynamic tactical situation." An armored SWAT vehicle was at the scene and helicopters circled overhead.

Police did not immediately confirm that three civilians had been killed, as the suspect said when he called police last night, but people familiar with the operation told camera crews at the scene that two bodies were inside the residence in addition to the one that could be seen on the front lawn.

McDonnell said SWAT officers entered the residence shortly after 12:30 a.m., triggering an exchange in which two veteran officers were wounded. One died at Northridge Medical Center shortly after 1 this morning, and the other was in surgery as of 5 a.m., he said in a briefing also attended by Los
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Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.

Each of the two officers who was shot spent more than 25 years in the Los Angeles Police Department, more than 20 in the SWAT team, McDonnell said.

Even though the SWAT team has been involved in thousands of incidents, this was the first to have claimed the life of one of the unit's members, he said.

"I want to say how deeply saddened we are this morning that we lost a member of our LAPD family," McDonnell said. "Our hearts and prayers go out to these families at this tough time."

Villaraigosa said the officer's death was a reminder of how perilous the work performed by police.

The incident began around 9 p.m. yesterday when a man locked himself up inside a home near Vanowen Street and Oakdale Avenue, according to an officer at the Los Angeles Police Department's West Valley Station.

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