Inglewood Police Defend Slaying of Gang Suspect

Two plainclothes Inglewood police officers were justified when they killed a 21-year-old Montebello man after he aimed a handgun at the officers while fleeing from an apparent gang-related shooting Saturday night, Inglewood police said.

“When a guy is running up to you with a .357 magnum and you tell him, ‘Stop, freeze, police,’ and he points at you, that’s reason enough to defend yourself,” said Sgt. Harold Moret, the department’s spokesman.

Michael Washington died Sunday morning at Martin Luther King Jr. Medical Center from two gunshot wounds in the chest. Moret called him a apparent gang member who used to live in the north Inglewood neighborhood where he was shot.

Routine criminal and departmental investigations into the shooting have begun, Moret said, adding that the officers have not been suspended or put on desk duty.

The violence began shortly after a group of about a dozen young men gathered in front of a relative’s house on West 85th Street. As the group drank and made noise, police said, someone crept up from across the street at about 8:30 p.m. and began firing at the group. The teen-age host was hit in the foot.

When police arrived, two uniformed officers spotted Washington crouching behind some bushes with a pistol, Moret said. When they ordered him to surrender, police said, Washington ran in the direction of the two plainclothes officers, who are on the department’s anti-gang task force.

Moret said both officers ordered Washington to drop the gun, and both fired their weapons.