Woman shot, hurt by Long Beach police was carrying a fake handgun

By Anh Do

Nov. 17, 2013 5:40 PM PT

A woman wounded in an officer-involved shooting Saturday in downtown Long Beach was carrying a fake semi-automatic pistol, authorities say.

Homicide detectives identified the woman as Adeline Arroyo, 32, who remains hospitalized in serious but stable condition. The Long Beach resident was booked on suspicion of brandishing a replica firearm in the presence of a police officer.

Officers arrived at 3rd Street and Long Beach Boulevard about 9:50 a.m. Saturday, said police spokeswoman Marlene Arrona. They negotiated with Arroyo near a post office after people called the Police Department and reported seeing a woman armed with a handgun.

Police said they saw Arroyo holding an object in her right hand, but she tried to conceal it in her clothing. Mental health specialists arrived at the scene to negotiate with her, though they were unsuccessful, prompting officers to call in the SWAT team.

At one point, Arroyo started walking toward police, removing clothing covering the item in her right hand, showing what observers thought looked like a handgun, authorities said. She initially aimed it toward the postal building, then turned it toward officers.

The officers fired on Arroyo. In a video, Arroyo is seen wearing a blue-gray T-shirt, plaid pajama pants and flip-flops, authorities said. The mental health specialists tried to talk to Arroyo for more than an hour before gunshots were fired, Arrona said.

The L.A. County district attorney’s office will launch an independent investigation into the shooting. This is routine in officer-involved shootings resulting in injury or death. Long Beach has had 19 such shootings this year, compared with nine in 2012.

The public is asked to call Long Beach Dets. Teryl Hubert and Mark Bigel Guarino at (562) 570-7244 with information. Anonymous tips can also be submitted by calling (800) 222-TIPS (8477) or by visiting LACrimeStoppers.org.

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E-mail: anh.do@latimes.com
Twitter: @newsterrier

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Anh Do

Anh Do, the community engagement editor at the Los Angeles Times, works across the newsroom to spotlight our journalists and journalism, bringing our diverse talent closer to the audiences they serve via virtual and live events. She’s a member of the recruiting team and also represents the paper in communicating with the public who have questions about The Times’ journalistic standards and practices. Before this job, she spent 11 years in Metro covering Asian American issues and general assignments. A second-generation journalist, she has reported for the Seattle Times, the Orange County Register and Nguoi Viet Daily News. Do, born in Saigon, is a graduate of USC with degrees in journalism and English. Her writing on culture and trauma has won awards from Columbia University and the Asian American Journalists Assn. She received Yale’s Poynter Fellowship in Journalism and, in 2016, was part of The Times team that won a Pulitzer Prize for breaking news coverage of the San Bernardino terrorist attacks. Apart from words, she’s passionate about all things canine, spending nearly three decades supporting dog rescue around the globe.

Woman shot, hurt by Long Beach police was carrying a fake handgun

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