Burbank Officer Fatally Shoots Man Outside Apartment

A Burbank police officer early Friday shot and killed a suspect who pointed a pellet gun at another officer, the first fatal shooting by Burbank police in more than a decade, police said.

Police said the shooting appears justified, but several neighbors said they did not hear officers give any warnings before shooting Luis Edward (Patrick) Arevalo three times as he stood outside his apartment in the 1900 block of West Victory Boulevard at Lamer Street.

“He didn’t point the weapon at them. He stopped and stood still when the cops came,” said Nick Garcia, 30. He and his wife saw the shooting from their bedroom window, which overlooks the street. “The cops fired right away.”

Arevalo, 26, was pronounced dead minutes after the 5 a.m. shooting, Police Lt. Larry Koch said.

The officers, whose names were not released, went to the apartment about 11 p.m. Thursday when Arevalo’s wife called to say that her husband hit her, broke a window and then left, Koch said. She called again about 4:45 a.m. and the two officers who responded saw Arevalo standing near the front door with a gun, Koch said.

The officers ordered Arevalo to drop the weapon, but he pointed it at them, Koch said. The second officer fired three times, Koch said. Arevalo’s weapon was a .177-caliber pellet rifle with a modified pistol grip, he added.

Police said the case was under investigation.

Arevalo’s wife was not home Friday night. But Garcia and his wife, Daisy, said they were in their bedroom when they heard Arevalo outside yelling to his wife about someone breaking into their car, which was parked down the street. Arevalo may have been asking his wife to call police, they said.

They said they saw him walk back toward his front door with the pellet gun in his left hand when two police cars pulled up, one car stopping on Victory and the other on Lamer.

“The cops fired right away,” Garcia said. “There was no warning. They didn’t say anything before shooting.”

“They didn’t say anything to him at all,” Daisy Garcia added. But “after the shooting, we heard one of the cops yell: ‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry.’ ”

Another neighbor who saw the incident from a different angle said he also did not hear the police give any warning. “I saw the car pull up, but I didn’t realize it was police until after they shot him,” said the neighbor, who identified himself only as Mike.

Mike saw the incident from his bedroom, which was not as close to the shooting scene as the Garcia apartment. But he said that he could see Arevalo walking back toward the apartment and that he did not see Arevalo point the weapon at officers.

“I didn’t see the gun until after he was shot,” he said. “Maybe they saw the weapon in his hand and fired. I can’t believe they would just shoot him.”

Several neighbors and the apartment manager described Arevalo as an easy-going, friendly man who liked to converse and kid around. Arevalo, who moved there two months earlier, apparently was partially disabled because of back problems, apartment manager Franz Orsan said.

Orsan and other neighbors said they knew of no incidents of violence in the Arevalo home.

“He seemed pretty mellow. He liked to joke around a lot,” Orsan said. “He never seemed aggressive at all.”