Man Outside Bar Slain by Officer Who Thought Hammer Was Gun

A police officer searching several men outside a Pacoima bar Monday shot and killed a man the officer mistakenly 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 the El Patio nightclub in the 11200 block of San Fernando Road, Los Angeles Police Sgt. E.J. Pellegrino said.

The identity of the dead man was not released.

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

Police said a number of crimes, including robberies and attacks on El Patio customers, have been committed in recent months in the area behind the bar.

“We have had a series of street-type crimes in that area,” said Detective Gary Holbrook, who investigates robberies in the Foothill Division. “There have been quite a few robberies.”

Holbrook said an exact count of crimes in the area was not readily available, but the most recent incident occurred Saturday night when a man leaving the El Patio was robbed at knifepoint.

Holbrook said he is also investigating a robbery in March in which a customer who had left El Patio was robbed and shot in the leg. In addition, Holbrook said, police are investigating two stabbing deaths in recent months that occurred in the area.

Rosales and Thompson were on routine patrol when they saw seven men standing in a parking area on Desmond Street, which runs behind the bar. There were several beer cans on the ground nearby, and one of the men was drinking from a bottle of Scotch, Pellegrino said.

Because of the crime history of the area, the officers asked the men what they were doing and then told them to line up and lean against a wall, 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, reach down the front of his pants and begin 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.”

Rosales, a nine-year veteran of the department, drew his pistol and fired once as the man began to turn toward him, still removing the object from his waistband, Pellegrino said. The man died of a chest wound at Holy Cross Medical Center.

No one else was injured. Police took the other men into custody for questioning and later released them.

The shooting will be reviewed by the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office.