Police, Family at Odds Over Man’s Death at Salvage Yard

Los Angeles police Friday bitterly disputed a Wilmington family’s charge that they acted too aggressively in an incident that left a man dead, a teen-age boy shot and wounded and a family homeless when a fire ravaged the Wilmington salvage yard where the gunman lived.

Curtis Smith, 29, one of half a dozen family members who worked at the Smith & Sons salvage yard on East C Street, was found dead Thursday night in the smoking remains of a house trailer to which he had fled after allegedly shooting 15-year-old Sean Allen Clark once in the abdomen with a .22-caliber rifle.

Authorities said Smith shot himself in the head with a large-caliber rifle after firing at least two shots at police and setting fire to the trailer. The fire destroyed the 15,000-square-foot salvage yard and burned power lines, knocking out electricity to 800 nearby homes for at least two hours.

The teen-ager, the son of Smith’s girlfriend, was in fair condition after undergoing surgery at St. Mary Medical Center in Long Beach. The youth’s mother was not present at the time of the shooting, witnesses said.

On Friday, members of Smith’s family criticized police for not allowing them to try to talk him out of the trailer.

“His father wanted to speak to Curtis over the loudspeaker before the fire started, but the police wouldn’t let him,” said Allison Smith, the dead man’s sister-in-law. “Then after it started, I asked the police why the Fire Department was just sitting there and not fighting the fire, and they said they didn’t know if (Smith) was firing shots. They should have let his father speak to him. Maybe all this wouldn’t have happened.”

Police bristled at the suggestion that they were in any way responsible for Smith’s death.

“It’s really unfair to criticize the officers for not calling (Smith) out when all they were trying to do is save any potential additional victims,” Lt. Alan Kerstein of the Police Department’s Harbor Division said. “This was a situation that was dictated by the suspect. (He) called the shots on this.”

Standing next to the blackened ruins of the salvage yard, which was filled with charred vehicles, appliances and scrap metal, Allison Smith said the incident had cost the Smith family dearly. Seven members of the family, including Curtis’ parents, Richard and Anna Smith, lived at the yard and worked in the family business. The family has operated salvage yards in Long Beach and Los Angeles for the past 25 years, since moving from Missouri.

“They lost a son, they lost everything they own, they’ve got no insurance, nothing,” Allison Smith said. “All we’ve got left is the clothes on our backs.”

The incident began about 8 p.m. Thursday, when several shots were fired in the gritty industrial area near the corner of C Street and Banning Boulevard. Stan Kovacevich, who works at an auto dismantling business on D Street, said he heard the shots and then saw the teen-ager climbing over an eight-foot metal fence that surrounds the salvage yard.

“He was yelling, ‘I got shot, I got shot’,” Kovacevich said. “He wasn’t bleeding much, hardly at all, so at first I thought he was joking. But then I called 911.”

Smith family members said Curtis Smith was “a good man” who would not intentionally shoot anyone. They speculated that he may have mistaken Clark for a prowler and then panicked when he realized what he had done.

But neighbors said the boy’s mother, Pamela Clark, was planning to break off her relationship with Smith and move out of the trailer they shared in the salvage yard. They speculated that that may have led to the shooting.

Police declined to discuss the motive for the shooting.

When officers arrived they ordered Smith family members to leave the yard and began searching for Curtis Smith. After searching two of the trailers they heard noises coming from a third at the back of the property. According to LAPD Lt. Joe Bustos, when they called to Smith to come out he responded, “Don’t come in here or I’ll kill you.”

Smith then fired at least two shots, missing the officers, Kerstein said. Less than a minute after the officers retreated from the scene and called for help, a fire erupted in the trailer and two muffled gun blasts sounded, Kerstein said.

Five fire companies tried to douse the flames from outside the salvage yard, but did not enter the yard for nearly 45 minutes out of fear that the gunman was still dangerous, Los Angeles Fire Department spokesman Michael Little said.

“Tactically speaking, we didn’t want to go rushing in there and aggressively attack the fire because that could have put firefighters at risk of possibly being shot at by the suspect,” Little said.

The blaze was extinguished at 10:27 p.m., but not before all three trailers and much of the surrounding scrap yard had been destroyed. Inside the trailer, police found Smith’s charred remains and a large-caliber rifle next to the body.

Although police believe Smith deliberately set the fire before shooting himself, arson detectives are still investigating what caused the blaze. The county coroner’s office expects to determine the exact cause of death by Monday, coroner’s spokesman Scott Carrier said.