Yeah. Crazy. I know. But appar­ently it’s true: Justin Bieber FOUGHT a pho­tog­ra­pher and put him in the hospital!

Here’s the deal: Justin and Selena Gomez were at a mall near his home in Cal­i­for­nia on Sun­day. As they were head­ing to their car, a paparazzi pho­tog­ra­pher dude tried to take their picture.

A scuf­fle broke out, and the pho­tog­ra­pher called 911. By the time police got there, Justin and Selena were gone. But the guy was taken by ambu­lance to a nearby hos­pi­tal where he was treated for pain.

Police are inves­ti­gat­ing, and they want to talk to Justin and Selena.

BUT, here’s what wit­nesses had to say about the inci­dent: The guy was block­ing Justin’s car and he asked him to move. When he wouldn’t, Justin got out of his car and that’s when things got physical.

But get this: A lawyer who just hap­pened to be on the scene walked up to the pho­tog­ra­pher after Justin left and advised him that he could make a nice wad of cash if he called an ambu­lance and filed a police report.

Before you ask, there’s no word exactly how the fight … or what­ever it was … went down. Even with all these wit­nesses, there don’t seem to be any details.

But we do have some PICTURES … and it does look like Justin got into a phys­i­cal alter­ca­tion with the guy. Justin even loses his hat … and a shoe.

The ques­tion really is: did Justin throw his shoe at the guy? Like really, WHO THROWS A SHOE?