Police fatally shoot alleged murder suspect at Vernon truck yard
Police fatally shot a man at a truck yard in Vernon early Wednesday morning, prompting a large scale investigation.
The shooting was reported a little after 7:10 a.m. in the 5600 block of District Boulevard.
During a press conference Wednesday afternoon, authorities disclosed that the officers were members of the Southeast Gang Task Force who were serving a search warrant on a suspect being investigated on separate counts of murder and attempted murder, both in Bell on separate dates in March.
They stated that the suspect had an extensive prison record and a criminal record that "defies logic."
Nearly 40 officers were said to have been searching homeless encampments along the Los Angeles riverbed from Vernon to Cudahy when they approached the suspect at around 7 a.m. It was then that the suspect ran from the area into the truck yard.
Officials said that a female officer encountered the suspect in the truck yard, at which point he allegedly began to attack and disarm the officer, which prompted her to open fire, striking the suspect at least once.
He was pronounced dead at the scene. His identity has not yet been released due to the ongoing nature of the investigation.
Three separate law enforcement agencies are said to have been involved in the incident, including the South Gate, Huntington Park and Bell Gardens Police Departments.
Due to the fact that the suspect was unarmed at the time of the shooting, the California Department of Justice has launched an investigation into the incident, as required by Assembly Bill 1506, which requires "a state prosecutor to investigate incidents of an officer-involved shooting resulting in the death of an unarmed civilian."
