Man Wounded by Deputy Is Acquitted of Charges

A 27-year-old man who faced criminal charges after he was shot six times by Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies was acquitted Wednesday in Compton Superior Court. Elzie Coleman, who was wounded during a 1990 altercation with deputies, was found not guilty of charges of brandishing a firearm and illegally possessing a handgun.

Coleman was walking shortly before midnight near his mother’s Lynwood home when deputies stopped him as a suspect in an earlier shooting. According to deputies, Coleman tried to flee and reportedly brandished a gun.

But defense attorney Gary Casselman said Coleman was unarmed and that Deputy Paul Archambault took 23 shots at Coleman, hitting him six times before planting a gun near his client. “This clearly shows that the jury disbelieved Deputy Archambault’s concocted story that my client had a gun,” Casselman said. The prosecutor in the case declined comment.