LOS ANGELES — A Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy was charged Wednesday in the fatal 2021 shooting of a suicidal man.
Prosecutors filed one count of assault with a firearm and one count of assault under color of authority against Remin Pineda, 40, in the March 2021 killing of David Ordaz Jr. in East Los Angeles. Although Ordaz was armed with a kitchen knife and had talked to his sister about "suicide by cop" before the incident, the charges signal prosecutors' belief that Ordaz did not pose an imminent threat to deputies when Pineda opened fire.
"Unlawful and excessive force at the hands of police erodes the public trust and leads to further divisions between law enforcement and the communities they serve," Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón said in a statement Thursday. "It is imperative that we hold law enforcement accountable when they act unlawfully. This tragic killing of Mr. Ordaz in the presence of his own family has caused tremendous harm that will reverberate for years to come."
An arraignment has yet to be scheduled and it was not immediately clear if Pineda had retained an attorney. He was relieved of his law enforcement powers after the shooting, according to a statement issued by the Sheriff's Department.
Last year, Sheriff Alex Villanueva said he had "grave concerns" about the shooting. In a statement issued Thursday, he again offered his condolences to the Ordaz family
When deputies confronted Ordaz at his family's home, he was holding a 12-inch kitchen knife and told deputies he wanted them to shoot him, according to video of the incident recorded by cameras worn by the deputies.
"Why are you upset today?" one deputy asks in the video.
"Because you won't (expletive) shoot!" Ordaz screamed in reply.
The video showed deputies standing about 10 feet away from Ordaz as they told him they didn't want to hurt him and ordered him to drop the knife. Ordaz moved toward the yard where some of his relatives were standing, and a deputy warned he was putting them in danger.
As his relatives pleaded for him to drop the knife and tried to calm him down, Ordaz asked the deputies to summon a helicopter and a news chopper, according to the video.
Eventually, deputies fired several beanbag rounds at Ordaz, who then took several steps forward and was felled by a barrage of at least a dozen bullets. The volley of gunfire continued as he hit the ground and his relatives screamed out, according to the video. It is unclear from the video if Pineda was the only deputy to fire.
"Even if (Ordaz) took a step towards the officers, it wasn't that those officers were in immediate danger," Jonathan Smith, a former chief of the special litigation section of the Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division, told the Los Angeles Times last year.
"He wasn't threatening, he wasn't holding someone hostage, the knife wasn't near anybody," Smith continued. "It did not look like he was charging or closing a distance to the officers in a way that poses a threat."
Ordaz, a father of three, had previous run-ins with law enforcement when he was in crisis. Deputies had subdued him in 2006 and 2007 at the home, according to coroner's records. It was not immediately clear what mental illness, if any, Ordaz had been diagnosed with, and his sister told deputies on a 911 call that she also feared he was under the influence of methamphetamine on the day of the shooting.
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(Times staff writers Richard Winton and Alene Tchekmedyian contributed to this report.)
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