Deputies Ruled Justified in Killing Suicidal Man

The actions of three Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies were justified when they fatally shot a suicidal man who charged at one of them with a claw-ended gardening tool, the district attorney’s office concluded Tuesday.

The independent investigation of the May 18 death of Lawrence Watts, 31, concluded that Deputies Mark Richardson, James Vetrovec and Mario Carrillo acted in self-defense of Richardson, a letter from the district attorney’s office to the Sheriff’s Department said.

Watts was shot in the parking lot of the Antelope Valley Medical Center after leading deputies on a two-hour, low-speed pursuit through Lancaster following an attempted traffic stop. After Watts finally stopped his pickup truck in the parking lot, he got out holding a bloody spading claw and making a growling sound, the letter said.

Watts ignored several shouted orders to freeze and charged at Richardson, the letter said. All three deputies opened fire on Watts and he was killed.

“He gave every indication that he was dangerous and unpredictable,” said the letter written by Deputy Dist. Atty. Kenneth R. Freeman. “This was genuinely an emergency situation. Based upon the available evidence, it appears that at the time Deputies Richardson, Vetrovec and Carrillo fired their weapons, they reasonably believed that Mr. Watts was attempting to seriously injure or kill Deputy Richardson.”

Investigators learned after the shooting that Watts had slashed his wrists with the spading claw during the pursuit.

The district attorney’s letter said Watts had been released three weeks earlier from a hospital where he was treated for being depressed, suicidal and psychotic.