REDWOOD CITY — Several police officers were injured in a fight with a man who allegedly hit an officer in the head with a bottle of liquor he took from a grocery store moments before the Friday night encounter, authorities said.
A 911 caller contacted police around 8:30 p.m. Friday to report a panhandler who was causing a disturbance at the Sequoia Station shopping plaza on El Camino Real near Jefferson Avenue, according to a Redwood City police news release.
Two responding officers spotted a man matching the caller’s description, and reportedly saw him enter a Safeway and quickly emerge with two bottles of alcohol, police said. The officers presumed the man had stolen the alcohol because of the short time he was inside the store.
As one of the officers approached the man to question him, police said the man “immediately struck the officer in the face with one of the bottles,” touching off a fight with the officers.