Police who were hunting a former LAPD cop accidentally shot a 71-year-old woman and her daughter as they delivered the LA Times, that newspaper reports.

Sources told the LA Times cops were trying to protect an LAPD officer named in former cop Christopher Dorner's online manifesto when they shot the two women in Torrance, Calif.

Cops thought the royal blue Toyota Tacoma occupied by 71-year-old Emma Hernandez and her 47-year-old daughter Maggie Carranza matched descriptions for Dorner's Nissan pickup truck, CBS Los Angeles reported.

"Tragically, we believe this is a case of mistaken identity," LAPD Chief Charlie Beck told reporters.

But the women's lawyer, Glen Jonas, hinted that cops were being overzealous in trying to protect their own, according to the LA Times story.

"The problem with the situation is it looked like the cops were administering street justice and didn't take the time to notice that these two older, small Latina women don't look like a large black man," Jonas told the Times.

Hernandez was shot twice in the back and was stable as of late Thursday, Jonas told the Times. Her daughter just had stitches in her finger.