Police Kill Man Carrying Fake Gun

Two Los Angeles police officers shot and killed a man who had allegedly threatened a neighbor and then appeared to draw a gun on officers investigating the incident, authorities said Sunday.

Freddie Santana, 26, was pronounced dead near his West 21st Street residence, Los Angeles police spokesman Mike Schwehr said. The gun turned out to be fake.

Police were called to the area just southwest of downtown Los Angeles about 10 p.m. Saturday, Schwehr said. A neighbor reported that he had complained to Santana about loud music, and that Santana had pointed a gun at him in response.

Two officers who took a crime report from the neighbor, whose name was not released, advised two other officers, Ulysses Gasca and Joseph Delorenzo, that Santana had emerged from his residence and reportedly had a gun “in his waistband,” Schwehr said.

Gasca and Delorenzo ordered Santana to raise his hands and Santana started to comply, Schwehr said. But Santana “then reached for his waistband and began to turn toward Officer Delorenzo,” Schwehr said. “Both officers, fearing Santana was arming himself, in self-defense fired several rounds, fatally wounding the suspect,” he said.

The gun, still in Santana’s waistband, turned out to be a “simulated handgun,” Schwehr said, although a real semiautomatic pistol was found inside Santana’s residence. The shooting remains under investigation, Schwehr said.

In a separate incident Sunday, Los Angeles County sheriffs’ deputies shot one of three suspects sought in a drive-by shooting after deputies chased the suspects’ van through Compton.

The wounded suspect, age 15, was treated at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center for bullet wounds to the shoulder and arm. All three suspects were arrested on suspicion of murder in the killing of a man in Lynwood early Sunday and attempted murder of a police officer, said Sheriff’s Deputy Rick Erickson.

The suspects’ names were not released because all were under 18, Erickson said.

The deputies, whose names were also not released, were investigating a different drive-by shooting when they saw a van fitting the description of one seen at the Lynwood shooting. The deputies pursued the van, and during the chase the van’s occupants shot at the officers, Erickson said.

The van crashed at the Alameda Street on-ramp to the Artesia Freeway, after which one suspect turned to the deputies with his hands “at waist level,” Erickson said. “Believing he was still armed, the two deputies fired several rounds,” striking the 15-year-old. No gun was located at the scene, Erickson said.

The deputies were not injured. The suspects were booked at Lynwood station. The van they were driving had been reported stolen in Cerritos, Erickson said.