Police ‘Didn’t Have to Kill’ Man, Witnesses Say

A knife-wielding man who was shot to death by Los Angeles police officers in Watts posed “absolutely no threat at all to the cops,” several eyewitnesses said Monday .

Darrel “Chubby” Hood was killed in the Jordan Downs housing project at noontime Saturday by officers responding to a call of a man trying to kill himself.

Hood, a longtime Watts resident who friends said was about 40, was reportedly stabbing himself in the head and chest when police arrived.

“The police told me, ‘We can’t let anyone commit suicide,’ ” said one woman who asked to remain anonymous. “So I asked them: ‘Is that why you killed him?’ ”

On Monday afternoon a group of 40 residents--some angry, some somber--gathered around a makeshift memorial of purple and yellow flowers set in left-center field of the baseball diamond where Hood died.

Many residents repeated the same line: “They didn’t have to kill him.” On Saturday, the Jordan Downs All Stars, a football team of 8- to 10-year-olds, were practicing on the baseball field for a playoff game when coaches saw Hood in the outfield with at least one knife. They quickly rushed the boys off the playing field as police arrived.

Police said Hood refused orders to drop two knives. One officer shot him with a handgun, and he was also hit with a dart from a stun gun. Still he was able to get back on his feet and advance on the officers, Lt. Anthony Alba said.

When Hood again refused orders to drop the knives, two officers, Brent Houlihan, 23, and Miguel Perez, 33, shot him in the torso, police said. Hood, who was married and had five children, died at the scene.

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The police account was considerably different from those of several residents who said they witnessed the incident.

“He wasn’t a threat to them at all,” said Jordan Downs resident and football coach Willie Thomas. “After they shot him, he wasn’t going toward them. He was just staggering from side to side. We were all yelling, ‘Don’t shoot.’ And when we saw it was Chubby, everyone started shouting: ‘Don’t shoot him. Please don’t shoot.’ ”

As the police opened fire, the shouting suddenly stopped and was replaced by stunned silence, residents said.

After the shooting, police fearing a mob scene, called a tactical alert.

“They were in full riot gear,” said Daryl Carter. “It was like we were in Beirut.”

Another man later disagreed with that assessment. “No, it was like we were in Watts,” he said.

The tactical alert was canceled five minutes after it was called, police said.

Seeing Hood lying dead on the athletic field where he had played as a child was particularly painful for the project’s recreation center workers, several of whom had known him since their childhood.

“He would always come around here and say what a great job we were doing with the kids,” Reggie Simms said as he sat in the housing project gymnasium’s small office. Although coaches managed to get the children away from the scene, many of the youngsters saw the shooting.

“The kids are torn up,” Thomas said. “They are afraid. They don’t want to go come back to the field or the gym. We’re getting ready for the playoffs. I don’t know how we’re going to do it.”

Several people who knew Hood were at a loss to explain why he apparently attempted to harm himself.

“I saw him walking around about 10 minutes before he died, and he seemed at peace to me,” said Eraina Bell.”

Another man, who refused to give his name, sat quietly staring at the flowers set on the playing field. He was Hood’s friend, he said.

“I think he was crying out to reach someone, to talk to someone about a problem,” said the man. “He was a good man. He had a problem, I guess. But they didn’t have to kill him. He wouldn’t hurt anybody.”

In the gymnasium office, recreation director Brian Cox sat quietly as his employees talked about the shooting.

“I am a city employee and normally I would not let the guys talk to you about something like this,” Cox said. “But these people are the eyewitnesses, and their side of the story needs to be told. A light needs to be shed on what is happening in this community.”

In the center of the tattered housing project, away from the playing field, a street gang sounded an ominous warning.

“We are at the boiling point again,” said one man who admitted he did not see the shooting. “We ain’t going to stand for this no more.”