July 10--A 30-year-old man who was shot and critically wounded by Los Angeles police Thursday in a Mid-Wilshire neighborhood had grabbed an officer's Taser and used it on the officer, an LAPD spokesman said.
LAPD Cmdr. Andrew Smith said two officers with LAPD's Wilshire Division responded about 8:40 a.m. to multiple reports of man using a skateboard to break windows near Wilshire Boulevard and La Brea Avenue.
When the officers arrived, they saw a man matching the description riding on a skateboard on South Sycamore Avenue and began to follow him. At some point, the man fell or jumped off his skateboard, and the officers got out of their car.
Officers approached the man near West 9th Street and Sycamore and tried to detain him, Smith said. When he didn't cooperate with their commands, a "violent, physical altercation" ensued, he said.
During the altercation, one of officers deployed a Taser, he said. The Taser was directly pressed against the man's body, but it didn't appear to have any effect on him, Smith said.
At that point, Smith said the man grabbed the Taser from the officer and used it on the officer's leg. The officer suffered an injury consistent with a Taser burn, Smith said. The officer's partner then fired a shot at the man.
The man was struck once in the upper torso. He was taken to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in critical condition, police said.
Smith said an initial report by police that the man was fighting with officers with a skateboard was untrue.
But he added that details about the shooting could later change because the investigation is ongoing.
Sgt. Frank Preciado said the officers were not wearing body cameras. Police have interviewed witnesses, but Smith declined to say what witnesses told them. He said detectives are looking for more witnesses to come forward.
Witness Patrick Comiskey, 54, told The Times he was walking his dog on Sycamore toward 8th Street when he saw police cars and a helicopter.
As he continued walking toward 9th Street, he saw a male and female officer trying to subdue a man he said appeared to be homeless on the steps of a building.
Comiskey said officers appeared to be struggling with him and looked as though they were trying to put his hands or arms behind his back. He didn't hear any words exchanged.
He saw the male officer reach behind his back and thought the officer was getting his handcuffs. Instead, he heard a gunshot.
"It was point-blank," Comiskey said. "All hell broke loose."
As the man slumped over, about 25 police cars appeared in the area, he said.
The officers involved in the shooting, he said, appeared shocked.
Comiskey, a wine critic, said he did not see a skateboard, either in the man's hands or on the ground nearby.
Thursday's incident marks the sixth police shooting in a week in Los Angeles County. Five shootings have been deadly. This is the second LAPD shooting this week.
On Monday, Jason Hendley, 29, was shot by police in Sylmar and later died at a hospital. Los Angeles police said he was holding a knife as he approached officers responding to an emergency call. He advanced toward police and officers opened fire.
Inside the home, police found the mother's fianc鬠who had died of multiple stab wounds.
In the Mid-Wilshire incident, several streets were blocked off as investigators examined the shooting scene.
Police received several reports about the vandalism near Wilshire and La Brea. At least one window of a business had been damaged, Preciado said.
Investigators were speaking to several witnesses and were trying to obtain closed-circuit footage from the area, he said.
The names of the officers would not be released until the LAPD had completed what's known as a 72-hour briefing, in which Chief Charlie Beck and other command staff are updated on the initial investigation into the shooting, Preciado said.
Matt Tenggren lives two doors down from the scene of the shooting and saw the aftermath. He heard a flood of sirens and helicopters after the shooting.
"It didn't look good," he said, adding the suspect lost a lot of blood.
Tenggren has lived in the neighborhood lined with duplexes for 20 years and has seen a few incidents, but none have risen to the level of Thursday's shooting.
"Our neighborhood is gentrified," he said, adding that more serious crimes don't occur in the area that often anymore.
UPDATE
5:05 p.m.: This story has been updated to report new details about the struggle between officers and the man.
1:48 p.m.: This story has been updated to report police still trying to determine what happened before the shooting occurred.
12:33 p.m.: This story has been updated with details from police, comments from residents and information on the number of recent police shootings.
11:02 a.m.: This story has been updated with more details from LAPD Cmdr. Blake Chow.
10:25 a.m.: This story has been updated with additional comments from Patrick Comiskey.
This story was originally published at 10:14 a.m.
