LOS ANGELES - A passenger in a car that had been reported stolen suffered a severe eye injury when a police officer fired three rounds from a bean bag shotgun, reportedly because he thought she was reaching into her jacket for a weapon.
Annette Amoroso, 38, who did not have a weapon, was expected to lose her right eye.
Police said she was uncooperative with officers before making a movement that one officer believed was threatening. Amoroso denied making such a movement.
Amoroso, of Westlake Village, said from her hospital room Thursday that officers ordered her to the ground early Monday after surrounding the vehicle.
''I was on my knees, with my hands up, and my back to them,'' Amoroso told the Los Angeles Times. ''First, they shot me in the shoulder. As I started to turn around, they shot me in the eye.''
Police Capt. Michel Moore, commanding officer of the Rampart station, said a preliminary investigation suggested that Officer Craig Marquez opened fire after Amoroso swore at officers, resisted their commands and reached into her jacket, a movement Marquez interpreted as threatening. The investigation was continuing.
Moore said civilian witnesses agreed that Amoroso was uncooperative and one witness supported the officer's account that the woman reached into her jacket.
Amoroso, a beauty salon owner, agreed she was reluctant to lie on the pavement as officers ordered, but denied making any ''movement.'' She said her attire - a miniskirt and tight-fitting sweater for a night out - wouldn't have allowed her to hide a weapon.
Amoroso said she lay moaning in a pool of blood for 20 minutes as officers looked on. She was later arrested for investigation of interfering with an investigation.
Amoroso, who was with several friends at the time, said she did not know the vehicle was reported stolen.
Kevin Patrick, who was arrested for investigation of grand theft auto, said the car was reported stolen by his wife because they had been fighting and he had failed to pick her up at the airport as he had promised. He said the car was registered in his wife's name.
''I assume she didn't tell the cops we were married when she made the report,'' Patrick said.
Patrick, 31, said he, Amoroso and two others had just pulled into a gas station when police cars pulled up and officers ordered him and Amoroso, the only two who had gotten out of the car, to the ground.
''Next thing I know, Annette's on the deck, covered in blood,'' Patrick said.
Patrick denied that Amoroso made threatening movements, as did a second friend who was present.
According to police records, Marquez, 27, has had one sustained complaint, stemming from a 1997 traffic stop in which he was accused of using ''unauthorized tactics'' in pointing his gun at a motorist's head. He could not be reached for comment.
