A man whose record includes seven felony convictions now faces an attempted murder charge after prosecutors say he opened fire with a machine gun on two Los Angeles police officers, grazing one of them.
Malcolm Darnell Guss Jr. is accused of using a fully automatic AR-style rifle to shoot Officers Stefan Carutasu and Joshua Rodney after they tried to stop his white Chevrolet sedan around 9:30 p.m. on July 3 in Willowbrook, near Broadway and Rosecrans Avenue, just south of Los Angeles.
Guss allegedly attacked the officers before they could exit their patrol car, resulting in two graze wounds to the head. Both officers suffered lacerations from shards of glass from the patrol car’s windshield. Guss fled the scene but was taken into custody on July 12. On Tuesday, he pleaded not guilty in Compton court to attempted murder and other charges for allegedly using a machine gun in the attack.
Court records show Guss' prior convictions include two residential burglary offenses in July 2014 and December 2018. Since 2020, he has been charged three times with being a felon in possession of a firearm.
In December 2020, records show, Guss was arrested by Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies with drugs and a gun. He was sentenced to two years in prison after reaching an agreement to plead guilty to a single felony in March 2021. That same month, he received another two-year sentence in a separate gun case stemming from a September 2020 incident.
The district attorney's office said in a statement that the two convictions carried concurrent prison terms.
Guss was arrested again in Antelope Valley in May 2022, charged with resisting arrest and assault with a deadly weapon. He pleaded guilty to felony resisting and received 16 months in prison, according to court records.
In February 2023, a judge issued a warrant for his arrest after he allegedly violated the terms of his release. Los Angeles Police Department officers in the Newton Division arrested Guss on July 10, but he was released a month later, county jail records show.
Announcing the charges Tuesday, District Attorney George Gascón said Guss opened fire “during what should have been a routine traffic stop” and called the incident “absolutely horrific.”
“This unprovoked attack is a stark reminder of the dangers our law enforcement officers face,” Gascón said. “This act of violence is not only an attack on officers, but also on our community’s values of safety and justice.”
Jamie McBride, vice president of the Los Angeles Police Protective League, the union that represents rank-and-file officers, called Guss “a coward.”
“There are only two places for him: life in prison or six feet under,” McBride said.
Guss is due back in court on August 10. He is being held on bail set at just over $2 million.
The district attorney's office said that if convicted, Guss could be sentenced under the state's “three strikes” law. He faces a maximum penalty of life in prison.
