Routine and Dangerous

Two six-packs of beer, another Los Angeles police officer slain.

Patrolman Mario Navidad, on the force for just 21 months and the father of two children, was killed Sunday while looking for a teenager suspected of stealing the beer from a 7-Eleven store in the Fairfax neighborhood.

Convenience store thefts are frequent, and this crime is notable only for its violent senselessness. A store clerk, after flagging down a police car, reportedly told officers a youth had stolen two six-packs.

Navidad, 27, and his partner cruised the alley behind the store, and they spotted someone with a carton of beer under each arm. According to a police spokesman, the officers approached in their car and the suspect turned around, shifted the beer to under one arm, and, “without warning and without explanation,” pulled a semiautomatic pistol from a pocket and started firing.

Navidad, exiting from the passenger side, was hit at least twice in the abdomen and died during surgery at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. His partner returned the fire, killing the suspect, whom police described as a 17-year-old gang member with a criminal record.

The case marks the second shooting of an LAPD officer in two weeks; seven have been slain or have died in accidents in the last four years. Officer Jay Cicinelli, 24, was shot five times during a traffic stop earlier this month. Wounded in the face, he may lose his left eye.

In some situations, such as a hostage-taking, police officers anticipate violence and plan accordingly, calling in a SWAT team, for example. But as Chief Willie L. Williams lamented Sunday night, sometimes routine actions “can be the most dangerous.” Perhaps, sadly, Williams points to a distinction without a difference: Perhaps there is no longer such a thing as a routine action for a police officer.