Officers Shoot Man They Say Threw a Knife at Them

Los Angeles police shot and critically wounded a man in North Hollywood during a confrontation in which he allegedly threw a knife at them, narrowly missing one of the officers, a department spokesman said Wednesday.

Lt. William Hall, who supervises investigations of officer-involved shootings, said a police review of the Tuesday night incident was not yet complete, but that the officers’ actions appeared to be justified.

“There is nothing we have found to cause us any alarm,” Hall said.

Experts in weapons and police safety said Wednesday that while most people cannot throw a knife effectively, the possibility for harm is great enough to warrant defensive measures by police.

“A drunk man can make a lucky hit,” said Al Mar, an Oregon-based martial arts and knife-throwing specialist who is also a deputy sheriff. “Who’s to say how proficient this man is with that knife? I’m not going to take the chance to find out.”

Hall said Gustavo Gomez, 44, was in critical but stable condition at Holy Cross Medical Center, where he was taken following the shooting at a gas station at Laurel Canyon and Roscoe boulevards.

A Holy Cross spokeswoman refused to comment on Gomez’s condition, saying police had instructed the hospital to release no information.

Gomez suffered several bullet wounds when Officers Philander Butler, 39, a nine-year police veteran, and William Carter, 32, a 10-year veteran, opened fire with a total of 10 rounds, Hall said.

The Metropolitan Division officers were on duty in North Hollywood as part of an effort to boost patrols in high crime areas.

A gas station clerk, who asked not to be named, said he missed the shooting because he retreated to a back office for safety when he saw police arrive. But the clerk said he saw Gomez run onto the gas station property just before the shooting and that he appeared drunk and scared.

“His hands, they were trembling with the knife,” said the clerk, who described the weapon as a small kitchen knife.

A prepared statement by Hall’s office described Gomez’s weapon as a folding knife with a five-inch blade. Hall was unable to immediately provide the exact distance between Gomez and the officers. Gas station owner William Farraj, who arrived after the shooting, said officers at the scene told him Gomez had been standing about 14 feet away.

Mar and other experts, including a research director at an Illinois-based company that has marketed a videotape called “Surviving Edged Weapons,” said they advise officers to maintain a minimum distance of 21 feet from someone armed with a knife or other sharp object.

According to the police, the confrontation began about 9:45 p.m. when Gomez knocked on the door of a house in the 19000 block of Burton Avenue and asked for someone who did not live there. He alarmed the woman resident because he refused to leave and appeared to be highly intoxicated, police said.

The frightened resident called police and her uncle, who lives nearby, Hall said. When the uncle arrived with two friends, Gomez threatened them with “a large knife,” Hall said.

The men were chasing Gomez when they were noticed by Officers Butler and Carter, who were patrolling the area. After learning that Gomez was armed and had threatened the men, the officers began pursuing him--one in the car and one on foot--until all three reached the gas station.

At the gas station, Gomez allegedly refused orders in English and Spanish to drop the knife. “After a couple of minutes, he turns the knife over in his hand, grasps the blade and raises it over his shoulder in a throwing position” toward Butler, Hall said.

Both officers fired as Hall released the knife, Hall said.