Two Los Angeles Police Department officers were transported to the hospital Saturday afternoon in Van Nuys, city police and fire officials said.
Few details about what happened are available other than it occurred in a McDonald’s parking lot on the 7000 block of Van Nuys Boulevard at 4:12 p.m., according to a police spokesperson. Los Angeles Fire Department ambulances were called to the scene to transport officers to the hospital, a fire spokesperson said.
Neither department had information on the officers’ condition, but by Saturday evening police said the situation was no longer an emergency and no further assistance was needed at the location.
CBS News Los Angeles reported that a damaged minivan surrounded by crime scene tape was seen in the parking lot and nearby a person appeared to be handcuffed in an LAPD patrol car.
Two Los Angeles police officers were wounded and a suspect was taken into custody Friday night after a shootout that erupted in South L.A. while officers were investigating a possible robbery, authorities said.
The incident occurred around 9 p.m. Friday when the two officers from LAPD’s Southeast Division responded to a report of a robbery in the 9200 block of Central Avenue, according to police.
At some point during the ensuing encounter, the officers exchanged fire with an armed suspect, who then fled the area, police said. It wasn’t immediately clear whether the suspect was struck.
A radio call for help brought a massive police response — including officers from neighboring divisions to the scene — which sits on the border of Florence-Firestone, an unincorporated neighborhood north of Watts. Officers with police K9s searched the area late into the night; the suspect was found and arrested after several hours, police said.
The two unnamed officers were taken to a hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. Police did not disclose where they were hit, but a law enforcement source told The Times that preliminary information suggests that one of the officers suffered a graze wound to the leg, while the other was struck in the hand by shrapnel.
Both officers were conscious and talking when they arrived at the hospital, a law enforcement source told The Times on Friday. They were released from the hospital Saturday morning.
L.A. police records show that LAPD officers have opened fire 24 times so far this year, compared with 32 in the same time period in 2023.
According to a recent crime briefing by LAPD interim Chief Dominic Choi, the Southeast area is one of several police divisions in the city to see an increase in robberies.
A Southeast officer was wounded in another police shootout in the division area in July, during which a man allegedly opened fire on a police squad with a machine gun. The man was later taken into custody and faces an attempted murder charge.
A Los Angeles police officer who shot and killed a 14-year-old girl through the wall of a changing room at a Burlington Coat Factory store in North Hollywood was cleared of wrongdoing Tuesday by the California Department of Justice.
California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta’s office said Officer William Jones used reasonable force in the 2021 incident because he was responding to a report of a possible active shooter.
That information turned out to be wrong — the suspect, Daniel Elena-Lopez, was carrying a bike lock, not a gun.
Footage released by the Los Angeles Police Department showed that when Jones arrived at the scene, toting a high-powered rifle, he rushed to the front of a phalanx of officers advancing toward the store’s home goods section, where he opened fire almost immediately upon encountering Elena-Lopez.
One of rounds that Jones fired “skipped off” a floor tile, the attorney general’s report said, and sailed into a fitting room where Valentina Orellana-Peralta was hiding with her mother. She was pronounced dead at the scene.
The shooting drew widespread outrage and grief, while bringing demands for the officer who killed her to be criminally charged. The Orellana-Peralta family has a pending civil lawsuit against the city of Los Angeles, alleging failures in training and oversight contributed to the deadly outcome. Attorneys in the case did not respond to a request for comment Wednesday.
The LAPD did not immediately respond to an inquiry about the case.
While an internal LAPD review panel was split on whether Jones’ decision to open fire was justified, then-chief Michel Moore ultimately ruled in 2022 that the shots violated department policy and that the officer should have taken more time to assess the situation. In a rare split with the chief, the Police Commission concluded that only Jones’ second and third shots were out of policy.
No LAPD officer has been charged in an on-duty shooting by county or state prosecutors in nearly two decades. Under Dist. Atty. George Gascón, L.A. County prosecutors have been more aggressive in filing cases against law enforcement officers who use force on duty though, bringing assault and manslaughter charges against Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies and Torrance police officers in recent years.
The attorney general’s office noted Jones had heard reports that Elena-Lopez was threatening customers at the store with a gun. The information was later amended, but it’s not clear whether Jones heard these later radio broadcasts, the office said. A toxicology report showed Elena-Lopez had been using methamphetamine.
Orellana-Peralta was a bystander in the store. She had arrived from her native Chile about six months prior, her family said, with dreams of becoming an engineer and a U.S. citizen. According to her family’s lawsuit, which was filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court earlier this month, the girl’s mother “watched helplessly as her daughter died while still in her arms.”
The attorney general’s office said that other officers at the scene had formulated a plan to try to stop Elena-Lopez by firing a .40mm “less-lethal” round at him, but Jones was unaware of their plan. Jones’ perception that he was shooting to stop an armed threat means he can’t be held criminally liable for the errant bullet that killed the teenager, based on a legal theory known as “transferred intent,” the office said.
The attorney general’s report called for the LAPD to improve its communication and coordination in emergency responses, but said it could not pursue charges against Jones because the killing of Orellana Peralta was “unintended and unforeseeable.”
After reviewing the report, civil rights attorney Jim DeSimone, who has brought wrongful-death suits against law enforcement agencies across the state, said the case highlights the need for officers to have better “situational awareness” before opening fire.
“It’s clear that with the number of officers, and less-lethal options, that Mr. Lopez could have been apprehended without killing an innocent human being,” he said.
Times staff writer James Queally contributed to this report.
Women make up nearly 20% of the department and are similarly reflected in middle management, working as sergeants and lieutenants. A woman runs the elite Major Crimes Division, and two hold positions of influence in the counterterrorism and transit services bureaus. The Office of Constitutional Policing and Policy is overseen by a civilian who is a woman.
But the unfolding search for Moore’s replacement has exposed a stark reality: There are few women on the force with the rank and experience to compete for the top job.
Los Angeles Police Department Chief Michel Moore announces his retirement at a news conference at L.A. City Hall on Jan. 12.
(Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times)
Of Moore’s 12 deputy chiefs, two are women. All three of his assistant chiefs are men.
The imbalance has fueled criticism of Moore over what some have seen as slow progress on gender equity under his leadership and an unwillingness to challenge a culture of sexism and harassment that has resulted in numerouslawsuits by LAPD officers in recent years.
The Police Commission, which will pick an interim chief, held an emergency closed-door meeting Jan. 19 to narrow down a list of contenders. According to LAPD sources, who were not authorized to speak publicly about the confidential search, the list includes two women, former assistant chiefs Sandy Jo MacArthur and Beatrice Girmala, and a number of high-ranking men who are currently serving.
After Chief Charlie Beck retired in 2018, there was speculation around City Hall and police headquarters that the moment could be ripe for the first female chief. But Girmala, an early favorite, did not apply, and MacArthur — who retired in 2015 — did not make the final list of three candidates.
The job eventually went to Moore. Girmala and two high-ranking women of color, Regina Scott and Beverly Lewis, left the LAPD in the intervening years. Their ranks were filled by men.
Before announcing his decision to retire, Moore defended his record in an interview with The Times, saying he has promoted each of the few women eligible to become commander; roughly 1 in 4 LAPD officers holding that rank now are women. Moore also pointed to the number of women working on antigang teams and other specialized units that were once considered off-limits to them.
“Twenty years ago, these units would have none or one,” Moore said. “These positions and experience build proficiency and confidence for officers to go to the next level of leadership.”
The LAPD is facing the same problems recruiting and retaining women as other U.S. police forces, and that has severely shrunk the pool of promotional candidates, Moore said.
MacArthur, who had a 41-year LAPD career, said past chiefs such as William Bratton “really paid a lot of attention in developing the leadership inside the department,” including for several women.
LAPD career development, MacArthur said, typically started at the captain level and continued with mentorship and exposure to a variety of roles. The process paved the way for the next generation of leaders to learn the nuts and bolts of running a multibillion-dollar organization and to prove their readiness for more responsibility.
“You do things to develop a ‘bench,’ so that the next time a chief leaves, you hopefully have multiple somebodies inside an organization who could potentially take over the job,” MacArthur said in an interview last year.
Other women who seemed poised for promotion within the LAPD have languished for years before making captain or commander.
Cmdr. Lillian Carranza, a 33-year LAPD veteran.
(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)
Among them was Lillian Carranza, a longtime captain who was one of the three women promoted to commander at the summer ceremony at LAPD headquarters. Her name had been near the top of a list of commander candidates since May 2018. Yet she was passed over for promotion again and again.
Carranza has sued the department several times for sexual harassment. One suit resulted in her being awarded $4 million in damages over leadership’s handing of a situation in which officers circulated a photo of a nude woman that some falsely claimed was her. Since 2018, at least eight men who were ranked below her on the eligibility list have been promoted to deputy chief or assistant chief.
Even with the promotions, women are disproportionately underrepresented among Moore’s innermost circle of decision-makers, his critics say. Some department insiders say a perceived lack of opportunity has led to the departure of several high-ranking female officials in recent years.
The reasons for this are many, the insiders say. One theory is the widespread perception of tokenism — the belief that women have a real shot only at leadership roles that were vacated by other women. Others say the department is not doing enough to provide mentoring and networking opportunities for female employees. Additionally, officers who are mothers sometimes delay seeking advancement until their kids are older or gravitate toward investigative roles with more family-friendly schedules that may not put them on the fast-track for promotion.
The two highest-ranking women in the department are both deputy chiefs. One is Ruby Flores, who had been one of the longest-serving commanders before her promotion in November to replace a retiring male deputy chief, Kris Pitcher.
The other is Emada Tingirides. She was promoted by Moore in 2020 and is considered a rising star who helped shape the LAPD’s community policing approach. In a jump that was nearly unprecedented, Tingirides skipped several ranks when she was elevated from junior captain.
Tingirides led the Community Safety Partnership bureau, which has been credited with reducing violent crime and improving relationships in some of the city’s most troubled housing developments. In 2023, she was placed in charge of the South Bureau, the department’s busiest, a move seen as offering the operational experience she missed because of her rapid ascension.
For months, her name has been bandied around police headquarters and City Hall as a possible chief candidate, along with current Assistant Chief Blake Chow and Art Acevedo, a career lawman who once served as chief of the California Highway Patrol and went on to be the top cop in Houston and Miami, according to sources who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the hiring search publicly.
The graduating class of police officers and new recruits at the LAPD Police Academy on Dec. 7.
(Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times)
Female officers at the LAPD and elsewhere are said to face a “brass ceiling” that blocks advancement, similar to the invisible blockade that has led to male-dominated executive leadership in the fields of politics, business and tech.
Critics argue that Moore hasn’t done enough to break down the barrier, repeatedly passing up qualified female candidates and promoting men instead. An internal LAPD analysis obtained by The Times shows that Moore elevated 35 men to the rank of commander and above during his first five years as chief, compared with just five women.
Until the 1970s, the few female officers who served were required to wear long skirts and nylons and were barred from riding in patrol cars. Most were entrusted to work only on juvenile cases. They were not allowed to be promoted above the rank of sergeant.
Consent decrees and court orders would force the department to diversify its ranks in the decades that followed.
The mostly white and male LAPD branded in the country’s imagination by TV shows like “Dragnet” is no more. Some of Moore’s backers credit him with recent contributions to the diversity efforts. Moore promoted two Asian American men to assistant chief, and officials of color run three of the four geographical bureaus.
The department is now more than half Latino, much like the racially diverse city it patrols. And the sight of a female supervisor running a crime briefing barely rates a glance anymore from officers filing into a roll call room. Women now make up about 19% of the LAPD, compared with an average of 12% at other departments nationwide.
Moore, second from left, inspects graduates of the LAPD Academy on Oct. 20.
(Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times)
While hurdles remain, women wearing LAPD blue today are encouraged to pursue career opportunities, said Cmdr. Shannon Paulson, a 33-year department veteran who is second-in-command at the Counter-Terrorism and Special Operations Bureau. “In many respects, it’s better than society at large,” she said.
But the LAPD’s ratio of women to men is roughly the same as it was in 1997, the year Betty Kelepecz became the first female commander.
Female police executives are still a rarity, although recent years have seen New York City, Atlanta, Sacramento, San Francisco and Seattle hiring women to run their police departments. Washington has a female police chief, and women hold 10 of the 18 top command positions. Houston and Dallas also have a significantly higher number of female senior staffers than the LAPD.
While there’s no consensus on whether female officers have a different philosophy on policing than their male colleagues, studies have shown them to be less prone to violence and more likely to use problem-solving skills to de-escalate volatile situations.
Women in leadership tend to be more collaborative and are more likely to challenge long-standing ideas about policing, at a time when departments across the country are under pressure to change police behavior, according to Connie Rice, a civil rights attorney who has worked closely with the LAPD on reforms in recent years.
Department officials may have rooted out the outright sexism that prevailed in law enforcement for decades, evidenced by male officers who didn’t want to work with women or refused to back up female colleagues on calls, according to Rice. But the LAPD is still dogged by allegations that a crude, misogynistic culture exists within the ranks, she said, and women in uniform face obstacles to advancement.
“The men get to run the 100-meter dash, and the women get to run the 200-meter hurdles,” said Rice. “When it comes to promotions, the comments are, ‘She’s not tough enough.’ They’ll find every reason in the world not to promote a woman. But they’ll promote their drinking buddies.”
Others disagree, saying that despite the challenges they face, women wearing the LAPD uniform have more opportunities than those in other agencies.
Moore has met regularly with representatives of the Los Angeles Women Police Officers and Associates, which seeks to boost recruitment of female officers. Moore has also internally touted his efforts to improve gender equity, boasting at a meeting of command staff several weeks ago that he has promoted more women than any of his predecessors to ranks of captain or higher.
Some insiders fear that in the LAPD’s relationship-based culture, such efforts are undermined by a perception that officers are more likely to move up the ranks based on who they know, rather than on merit.
Los Angeles Police Protective League director Debbie Thomas wrote last August in her column in the police union’s monthly magazine that hiring and promotional decisions are driven in large part by “identity-based goals,” rather than “merit.”
“As a female officer, I stand to benefit from these quotas if they existed,” Thomas wrote, adding that she is “1,000%” against such a system. “I don’t need the help an identity boost can provide, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to come to work having those I lead snipe at my heels because they are convinced I didn’t earn my way to the position.”
In his interview with The Times, Moore denied that the department promotes people who aren’t qualified, saying he had taken steps to bring greater fairness to a promotional process that for years “people believed was biased and unfair.”
At the same time, he acknowledged the headwinds in trying to attain greater diversity.
“Having a substantial number of women in law enforcement is a new concept that is only now beginning to be seen and not just talked about,” he said. “As with any cultural evolution, it challenges the convictions of some, manifesting into allegations of not being qualified.”
Mayor Karen Bass meets a graduating class of officers.
(Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times)
Mayor Karen Bass has promised a nationwide search for a replacement for Moore. At the end of the process, which will likely take months, the commission will present Bass with its top three candidates, then her pick will be voted on by the City Council. Moore has said he will stay on until that time in a consulting role.
Pundits say picking a chief is one of the most consequential decisions a mayor makes.
A female LAPD officer who accused former assistant chief Alfred “Al” Labrada of unlawfully tracking her has filed a legal claim alleging department leadership failed to shield her from backlash, both inside the department and on social media.
The officer, Dawn Silva, said in a government claim filed Tuesday that her decision to report Labrada unleashed a torrent of abuse from his defenders, who she claims have continued to contact her privately since an Oct. 7 press conference in which Labrada publicly dismissed the allegations.
Silva, a senior officer with the department’s training division, said in the claim that she went on medical leave on Sept. 18 “[d]ue to the significant pressure and anxiety that [she] was facing from the persistent rumors.”
Silva’s claim says she has been “harassed and discriminated against based on her sex and gender and has been retaliated against” for reporting the alleged misconduct.
Some of the harassment has come from fellow LAPD officers, the claim says, noting that some comments were receieved from LAPD-adjacent accounts on Instagram. One such account, called @defendthelapd, posted a story characterizing Labrada as a “sacrificial lamb,” while accusing the officer who filed the police report against him of “lying and pulling a #metoo…because she’s scorned.”
After news of the allegations broke, Labrada was demoted to the rank of commander and has been sent to a disciplinary panel, where he faces possible termination. He has been on leave since early October.
Silva said Labrada has “continuously and on an ongoing basis” emailed and texted her, “despite assurances” from the department that the he had been given two “stay away” orders. Such orders are an administrative tool regularly used to separate department employees who are involved in interpersonal or romantic disputes; repeated violations can result in an officer’s termination.
In a statement Tuesday, Labrada’s attorney, Jeremy Tissot, said he had not yet reviewed the claim, but he stood by his comments at a news conference in October where he defended his client. Tissot pointed out that prosecutors in San Bernardino County declined to file any charges against Labrada.
“Mr. Labrada has never engaged in any stalking, harassment, abuse or other illegal actions, in my opinion,” Tissot wrote in a statement.
At the news conference in October, Labrada said the case had caused him “significant emotional and physical distress.” He accused department leadership — singling out Chief Michel Moore on several occasions — for making details about the case public that he said should have been protected by state privacy laws. Labrada argued that he was being treated differently from other department officials facing allegations of misconduct, echoing a double standard argument made in several other recent lawsuits against the LAPD.
Tissot also scolded news outlets for their repeated characterization of the allegations against Labrada as “stalking,” a label that he said carries a dark connotation. Tissot said the allegations against Labrada do not meet the state’s legal definition of stalking. The attorney added that he was limited in what he could say because of the department’s pending disciplinary case against his client.
An LAPD spokeswoman declined to comment on Tuesday, saying the department generally doesn’t discuss ongoing litigation.
Silva’s attorney, Matthew McNicholas, accused the department Tuesday of mishandling the case against his client.
“It’s entirely inappropriate for an assistant chief in LAPD to place what is in effect an electronic dog collar on a simple police officer that he was in a romantic relationship with,” said McNicholas, adding that Silva began receiving text messages from colleagues shortly after she reported Labrada to internal affairs. “How does that happen? She didn’t tell anybody else in the department. Her mother didn’t tell anyone else in the department. So it is her belief, it is our belief that it was leaked.”
Silva said she discovered a tracking device called an AirTag on Sept. 3 during a getaway with friends at a hotel in Palm Springs, when he emailed her a copy of their domestic partnership separation agreement, according to the police report. The timing of the message made her suspect that Labrada knew her whereabouts, and she then asked a friend to help her inspect her car, according to the report.
The search turned up an AirTag in a black Pelican case that was attached to the undercarriage, behind the rear passenger wheel, her claim said. A friend of hers “scanned” the device, which revealed that it was registered to Labrada’s city-owned cellphone, according to her claim.
Several investigators from internal affairs showed up at her home to interview her the day after she filed a report with Ontario police, she said. But, when they rechecked the AirTag, Labrada’s information had been wiped, leading Silva to believe that someone had tipped him off.
She said her relationship with Labrada dates back to October 2017, when he was a captain in Hollenbeck Division. in May 2021, they filed paperwork to become domestic partners. Silva maintains that she ended their relationship last July “due to its continually toxic nature.”
Silva was granted a temporary restraining order against Labrada on Nov. 16; in her application for the order, she described the emotional anguish that the ongoing abuse had caused her and said she feared for her safety, She also detailed Labrada’s ongoing efforts to contact her, including through friends and family members, according to the document.
Times staff writer Richard Winton contributed to this report.
Several Los Angeles police officers broke with department policy in the arrest of Keenan Anderson, whose death after a traffic stop in January reignited debates about the suitability of police for dealing with people in distress, the Police Commission ruled.
Although not unanimous, the commission Tuesday found that officers deviated from LAPD policy on multiple occasions when they restrained and shocked the 31-year-old teacher and father with a Taser while trying to take him into custody.
The civilian oversight panel generally agreed with the conclusions of LAPD Chief Michel Moore and an internal department review board, which itself was split on several policy questions.
Moore and police commissioners concluded that one of the officers continued to use a stun gun on Anderson, a Black man, even after he no longer posed an immediate threat. Moore and the commission also ruled that, whether inadvertently or not, two of the officers did not have cause to hold Anderson down by the neck. Under the department’s policy, such contact to a person’s neck is considered deadly force.
Anderson’s case garnered international attention, in part because he was a cousin of Patrisse Cullors, a co-founder of the Black Lives Matter Global Network. Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass strongly condemned the incident, which happened weeks after she took office and sparked calls for changes to police policies related to traffic enforcement and the use of stun guns.
It also added kindling to a fiery debate about how police interact with people in crisis, after a string of high-profile deadly encounters in recent years.
Veteran civil rights attorney Carl Douglas, who filed a wrongful death lawsuit on behalf of Anderson’s family, called Tuesday’s ruling a rare but welcome decision from an oversight body he said too often signs off on police misbehavior. The finding was “one small step toward justice,” he said.
“However, we are mindful that this fight is not over. The city is going to be defended vigorously by the city attorney as they do in virtually every case,” Douglas said Wednesday, pointing out that the city has already filed motions denying any responsibility for Anderson’s death. “We are heartened that the commission saw the decision to Taser Mr. Anderson as an abomination. They don’t call it an abomination, but I can.”
What the body camera footage captured was the lack of training for officers on when Taser use is appropriate, Douglas said, adding that officers often misinterpret a person squirming as a form of resistance that justifies the device’s use.
Douglas joined about two dozen activists and members of Anderson’s family who held a press conference before Tuesday’s Police Commission meeting, demanding the officers involved be held accountable. Afterward, the group appealed directly to the commissioners in what became an emotionally-charged meeting.
The commission’s ruling was denounced by the Los Angeles Police Protective League, which represents the city’s rank-and-file officers.
“We strongly disagree with these politically influenced findings, each responding officer acted responsibly in dealing with Mr. Anderson who was high on cocaine and ran into traffic after fleeing a car accident he caused,” the League’s board of directors said in a statement to The Times Wednesday.
“The coroner confirmed he was not tased(SIC) but rather drive-stunned when he refused to follow simple directions while in the middle of a busy street, the board wrote. “Mr. Anderson and Mr. Anderson alone was responsible for what occurred.”
The encounter that ended with Anderson’s death began sometime before 3:30 p.m. on Jan. 3, when Joshua Coombs, a motorcyle officer assigned to the West Traffic Division, responded to what the LAPD referred to at the time as a “felony hit-and-run” car crash at Venice and Lincoln boulevards.
Coombs encountered Anderson darting on foot through traffic in apparent distress and ordered Anderson to sit on a nearby street corner. Anderson complied for some time, but then took off running, yelling that he was fearful for his safety.
Coombs followed after him, as did officers Jaime Fuentes and Rasheen Ford, who had seen the incident unfold as they drove past in their department squad car. The officers eventually caught up to Anderson and pinned him to the ground, as he resisted their efforts to put him on his stomach and handcuff him. They were eventually joined by two other officers, Christopher Walters and Stephen Feldman.
The commission reviewed the case during a closed-door session of its regular meeting, which was was briefly interrupted when president Erroll Southers ordered the room cleared because of disruptions in the audience.
Much of the criticism of the police response centered on Fuentes discharging his Taser six times in the span of 42 seconds. But Moore ruled, and the commission agreed, that officer Fuentes’ first four deployments of the stun gun were within policy.
However, a department force review board faulted Fuentes for his final two Taser uses, delivered as other officers used their body weight and arm holds to control Anderson. Fuentes, a patrol officer in Pacific Division, told internal investigators that he used the so-called drive stun function, in which the device is pressed directly against someone’s skin rather than fired from a distance, to prevent the incident from escalating further. Fuentes said he continued shocking Anderson because he wouldn’t stop resisting.
The ruling wasn’t unanimous. The majority of the board said that, although Anderson was still pulling away from the officers, he didn’t present a threat to them and appeared instead to be starting to comply with their commands.
The majority noted that Fuentes admitted in his department interview to using the drive-stun mode for pain compliance, against department policy, and said it would have preferred that he had reassessed the situation and switched “to a different force option after the third TASER deployment.”
Several board members argued that the first four stuns were in compliance because the officers believed they could still be harmed due to Anderson’s continued resistance.
Moore wrote in his report that, in making his decision, he considered that “Anderson was violently resisting the officers’ attempts to take him into custody.”
“I noted the use of the TASER to be effective in assisting officers to take control of Anderson,” Moore wrote. “As it pertains to TASER activation five and six, I opined the officers had sufficient control of Anderson and that his level of resistance, while still ongoing, did not justify the use of a TASER as a reasonable force option.”
During the final activation, Fuentes told investigators that he saw Anderson tense up, which he interpreted as an attempt to prevent officers from handcuffing him.
Anderson was taken to an area hospital, where he later died.
Last month, the department announced it would soon start testing out a new generation of Tasers with greater range that would preclude officers from having to use higher levels of force against uncooperative people. The eventual switch to the next-generation Taser 10 model comes on the heels of changes in the department’s Taser policy, including barring officers from using the drive stun function.
The officers’ tactical decisions were scrutinized almost from the onset. Anderson’s family, some elected officials and police watchdogs decried what they saw as an overly aggressive response by police against someone who was disoriented and needed care after being involved in a traffic collision.
Several policing experts who reviewed video for The Times of the Jan. 3 incident — from cameras worn by officers — previously said the amount of force used by the officers seemed excessive given Anderson’s actions and that their tactics appeared haphazard.
An autopsy by the L.A. County coroner’s office later identified an enlarged heart and cocaine use as the causes of death, and did not rule it a homicide. Whether his death was natural, an accident or a homicide remains undetermined, according to the coroner’s website. Anderson’s family has disputed the report’s findings, contending that it deflected blame from the police.
During their investigation, detectives from the LAPD’s force investigations division slowed down footage of the encounter and counted nine times in which officers Fuentes and Ford made contact with Anderson’s neck during the struggle. Both officers denied applying pressure or otherwise restricting Anderson’s ability to breathe.
At one point in a video of the encounter, Anderson is lying on the pavement and struggling with officers when he yelled out, “They are trying to kill me. Kilo tried to kill me.” After being told to stop struggling, video showed Ford’s right hand on the side of Anderson’s jaw, with his thumb apparently near Anderson’s neck, the report says.
With a 3 to 2 vote, commissioners also found fault with officers for failing to put Anderson “in a recovery position as soon as practical.”
After days of mounting public pressure, Moore took the rare step of releasing additional footage from the encounter, which showed a distraught Anderson crying out for help as multiple officers held him down. Eventually, he washandcuffed and hobbled at his ankles before paramedics take him away. He later died at a hospital.
Anderson’s death also galvanized a push for removing police from responding to minor traffic collisions, as well as to stop them from pulling over motorists for traffic violations, arguing that communities of color have historically borne the brunt of such enforcement. Instead, they said, such tasks could be handled by unarmed civilians.
Melina Abdullah, co-founder of Black Lives Matter Los Angeles and a professor at Cal State L.A., said she was heartened by the commission’s ruling, even if it was a somewhat hollow “victory” since it wouldn’t bring Anderson back.
“Justice for Keenan Anderson would mean that he were there to raise his child, that he was there to continue to be a model for his brothers, that he was there to be a model teacher,” said Abdullah. “But justice in his name looks like accountability, making sure that the cops who killed him are held accountable.”
