Troubled Man Killed by Deputies : Shooting: Officers say the Montrose resident, 30, lunged at them with the jagged edge of a broken crutch after threatening pedestrians and drivers.

Two Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies shot and killed a mentally troubled man early Sunday after he lunged at them with a broken crutch he had been using to threaten motorists and pedestrians, authorities said.

Paramedics pronounced Aaron Cease, 30, of Montrose dead in the 2700 block of Montrose Avenue shortly after midnight. He was shot several times after he threatened deputies who repeatedly ordered him to drop the crutch, said Deputy Britta Tubbs.

The dead man’s mother, Doreen Cease, said her son was under a doctor’s care for the past 12 years for “major depression” and used the single crutch to help support a weak ankle broken less than a year ago. “He has never been threatening on the street like that before,” she said.

Deputies responded to a call of a man standing in the road threatening motorists and pedestrians with the sharp, jagged end of a broken metal crutch, Tubbs said. Deputies reportedly told Cease to drop the crutch, but he refused and threatened to kill them.

“He was yelling that the deputies would have to kill him or he would kill them,” Deputy Matthew Rodriguez said.

The two deputies, whose names were not released Sunday, tried to calm Cease for several minutes. But Cease continued to swing the crutch at the deputies, following them closely as they tried to back away, Tubbs said.

After shadowing the officers for 120 feet, Cease lunged at them with the crutch, Tubbs said. The officers fired several shots at Cease. It was unclear Sunday how many shots were fired or how many struck Cease.

The shooting outraged Cease’s mother, who asked why the deputies did not use less than deadly force to subdue her son.

“Why didn’t they use Mace or a stun gun?” she asked. “We just don’t understand why they had to use such measures.”

But Rodriguez said the deputies shot Cease only when they feared he would hurt them. “The deputies didn’t shoot him when he was 20 feet away or only 10 feet away. They shot him when they thought they were going to be stabbed,” Rodriguez said.

Cease saw her son for the last time Saturday when she took his dinner to his apartment--about half a mile from her home in La Crescenta. He had lived alone for the past five years, Cease said.

Cease said she thought her son was on his way to a convenience store when he was shot.

As family and friends comforted Cease, she vowed to look into how law enforcement officers handle people with mental illnesses.

“I’ve heard a lot of stories about the police shooting mental patients, but I never thought it would happen to my son,” Cease said.