The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department confirmed at a Wednesday news conference that a loaded .40-caliber semiautomatic handgun was recovered at the scene where police fatally shot a Hispanic security guard in June, according to reports.
During the update on the investigation, authorities provided few new details but suggested the community of Gardena where Andres Guardado died was rife with criminal activity — saying five people had been arrested in a “parallel investigation” connected to the auto repair shop the 18-year-old was protecting.
Several illegal nitrous oxide tanks were later recovered at the business, police said Wednesday, adding that search warrants had also been issued to social media companies as part of the investigation but would not elaborate.
One investigator noted the prior incidents had nothing to do with Guardado, leading to an uproar among reporters who pressed officials about their relevance, according to KTLA News 5.
Authorities also revealed that no fingerprints were found on the weapon but that Guardado’s DNA was on the firearm, which also had an extended magazine, according to a report by ABC7 Eyewitness News.
Guardado was on his regular patrol June 18 when two deputies encountered him at the entrance of the business. He was talking to someone in a car that was blocking the entrance to the body shop and was not wearing a security guard’s uniform at the time.
Deputies said Guardado was also wielding a handgun and immediately turned and fled when he saw them. After a brief foot chase the 18-year-old was dead from six bullet wounds.
An independent autopsy report in early July showed he was shot five times in the back.
Before Wednesday, investigators had provided few details about the shooting except to claim that Guardado was armed and got into a confrontation with officers after fleeing the scene.
Authorities have never said Guardado pointed the gun at officers and have never reported that any shots were fired at deputies. Neither officer was wearing a body camera at the time of the shooting, leading to increased skepticism about the police version of events.
Authorities were able to obtain video from a nearby business that showed a group of suspicious people gathered before the shooting, police said Wednesday.
The police department has also delayed releasing the results of the official autopsy report prepared by the Los Angeles County coroner’s office, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Previously
Authorities identified the two deputies involved as Miguel Vega and Chris Hernandez. Only Vega, 30, fired his service weapon, but the reason remains unclear, the Los Angeles Times reported, citing sources close to the case.
The family pathologist found that Guardado died from five gunshots to the torso, and that he sustained a sixth wound in the left forearm.
A preliminary toxicology report found no presence of drugs or alcohol in Guardado’s system at the time of his death.
The shooting happened amid nationwide protests against police brutality and heightened racial sensitivities in the wake of George Floyd’s death, and one day after another deputy on the same force shot and killed the half-brother of a Black man found hanged from a tree.
Officers said they first spotted Guardado about 6 p.m. outside the front of the business on Redondo Beach Boulevard, near South Figueroa Street, in Gardena.
Before he was killed, Guardado was talking to someone in a car whom police have not been able to identify.
Protesters crowded the streets of Gardena to demand answers.
“What happened to Andres was not only a tragedy, it was an outright crime,” said Ron Gochez, a member of Union del Barrio, which organized a recent demonstration, according to the Times. “This is just one more of so many people who have been killed by the L.A. County sheriffs and the police ... this is the unity between the Black and brown community saying we are tired of this.”
Who was Andres Guardado?
Guardado reportedly worked two part-time security jobs. He lived with his parents in Koreatown and had a brother and sister, The Associated Press reported.
The family came to the United States from El Salvador to escape the country’s civil war. Guardado wanted to become a mechanic or electrician and was attending a local technical college. He also talked about joining the Army.
He had only recently started working at the Street Dynamic Auto Body shop, according to family, although authorities said Guardado was under the 21-year age requirement to be a security guard in California and was not wearing a uniform the night he was killed, the Times reported.
“Deputies engaged in a short foot pursuit between the two businesses, at some point the deputies contacted the suspect and that’s when the deputy-involved shooting occurred,” a sheriff’s spokesman said the week of the shooting, according to a report by KCAL 9, the CBS affiliate in Los Angeles.
The sheriff’s department later said the weapon was not licensed.
Reaction
U.S. Reps. Nanette Barragán and Maxine Waters of California and Los Angeles County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas called for independent investigations, including one led by state Attorney General Xavier Becerra, the Times reported.
Andrew Heney, the owner of the auto shop, told reporters: “We had a security guard that was out front, because we had just had certain issues with people tagging and stuff like that. And then the police came up, and they pulled their guns on him and he ran because he was scared, and they shot and killed him. He’s got a clean background and everything. There’s no reason.”
Another shooting
Elsewhere, L.A. deputies also were not wearing body cameras when they shot and killed 31-year-old Terron Boone on June 17 in Kern County in what officials described as a shootout with the suspect.
The only video to emerge in the case thus far is from a home security camera that contained audio of the incident, according to The Associated Press.
Body cameras
After years of debates and then plans to distribute body cameras throughout the force, deputies still don’t have them, the AP reported.
Nor do they have — or is the agency planning on getting — audio recorders or dash cameras for department vehicles. The program stalled over concerns about its costliness and policies for reviewing and releasing footage, and more recently, implementation was tangled up in bureaucratic red tape.
Sheriff’s Cmdr. Chris Marks told the Times that officials are planning to supply body cameras to 5,200 uniformed deputies on patrol.
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