LOCAL : Hammer Mistaken for Handgun, Suspect Slain at Pacoima Bar

A police officer who was attempting to search several men outside a Pacoima bar this morning shot and killed a man he thought was pulling a gun from his waistband, authorities said. The man was actually pulling out a hammer.

The shooting occurred at 12:20 a.m. behind El Patio nightclub in the 11200 block of San Fernando Road, Los Angeles Police Sgt. E. J. Pellegrino said. The identity of the man who was killed was not released.

Officer Guillermo Rosales, 37, and his partner Alan Thompson, 24, were patrolling behind the bar because of a recent spate of robberies, said Pellegrino, a member of a police unit that investigates officer-involved shootings.

Pellegrino said several patrons of the bar had been attacked and robbed in recent months by men who loiter outside the rear door waiting for inebriated customers to come out.

Rosales and Thompson saw seven men standing in a group on Desmond Street, which is adjacent to the rear parking lot of the bar. There were several beer cans on the ground near them and one of the men was drinking from a bottle of Scotch, Pellegrino said.

The officers stopped and asked the men what they were doing and then told them to line up and lean against the wall of the building, Pellegrino said.

“The officers, for their safety, initiated a cursory search for weapons,” Pellegrino said. “One of the suspects told Officer Thompson that he had two toy guns in his pocket. Thompson removed the guns and verified they were toys.

“However, this heightened the officers’ concern that these men may have intended to commit robberies and that one or more of them may be armed.”

At that point, Rosales saw one of the other men take his hands off the wall and reach down the front of his pants to remove a chrome object, Pellegrino said. Rosales ordered the man, in Spanish, to freeze, but the man continued to withdraw the object, he said.

“Officer Rosales saw what appeared to be brown grips,” Pellegrino said. “He formed the opinion it was a chrome or nickel-plated handgun with wooden grips. He believed the man was pulling a handgun and feared he was about to be shot.”