PASADENA >> A man fled from police during a traffic stop and fired a handgun at a pursuing officer, who then shot and critically wounded the suspect Friday, officials said.

Paramedics took the wounded man to a local hospital.

Pasadena Officers recovered a gun they think was used by the man and later found the suspect vehicle. They are currently searching for two other suspects, according to Lt. Steve Jauch of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Homicide Bureau, which is investigating the officer-involved shooting.

The incident involved two officers. Niether was injured, Jauch said.

The officers saw a car carrying three people on Marengo Avenue and Orange Grove Boulevard just after 9 a.m.

Sheriff’s Commander Rod Kusch said the officers initiated the traffic stop because they believed the vehicle was “suspicious.”

“Either the occupants or the behavior of the occupants in the vehicle was suspicious,” Kusch said.

The officers followed the car which stopped at Adena Street and Los Robles Avenue, according to Jauch. One man got out of the vehicle and ran. It’s unclear if he was the driver or a passenger.

One officer chased the man.

Jauch said the shooting happened in the 900 block of Los Robles Avenue around 9:15 a.m.

“The suspect produced a handgun and opened fire,” Jauch said. He didn’t know yet how many times the man shot at the officer.

He said the officer shot multiple times and hit the man in the upper torso.

Jauch said the two other suspects fled in the car. The car was later found a few blocks away, he added. It was empty.

At the time of the incident, a man and his daughter were driving northbound on Los Robles Avenue on their way to a doctor’s appointment.

The man, Claudio Narvaez, said he saw the police car behind a vehicle that was stopped at the traffic light on Los Robles Avenue at Mountain Street. The police turned on their red lights to pull the driver over, he said.

The driver stepped on the gas and made a left turn to Adena Street, according to Narvaez. He saw officers running after a man.

He said the man dropped something in the middle of the street. The man was almost to the curb when the officers fired, he added.

Narvaez said he heard at least 10 to 12 shots. He said he thought the man was shot in his back.

“From what my daughter and I could see, he didn’t turn around. He was running from the cops,” Narvaez said.

He saw a gun lying about three to five feet in front of the prone man after the shooting.

Not long after the shooting, neighbors milled about on Los Robles Avenue trying to find out what happened. Elsewhere in the older neighborhood of mostly single-family homes, people walked their dogs and jogged.

Nearby resident Allison Henry heard the shots around 9:15 a.m., at first thinking it was coming from nearby construction. The first three shots went out rapidly, followed by a very brief pause and another rapid volley from what sounded like the same gun.

“It didn’t sound different,” she said. “It all happened really fast.”

She said that by 9:30 a.m. an ambulance arrived to take away the wounded suspect. The area is often very busy with people, with children walking to school not long before the shooting, she said. It’s lucky that no one else was hurt, she said.

A woman who identified herself as only Marsai said she heard 16 semi-automatic shots around the same time as Henry. She was in the neighborhood visiting her nephew.

She could hear distant sirens before the gunfire erupted, she said.

“It was so loud,” she said. “There was too many shots.”