Off-Duty Officer Takes Own Life Outside Hospital

An off-duty Pasadena police officer shot himself to death Wednesday as he sat in his vehicle in the parking lot of Las Encinas Hospital, authorities said.

Alfredo Lozano, 32, an eight-year veteran who was assigned to the department’s anti-gang unit, was pronounced dead outside the Pasadena psychiatric and chemical dependence facility, Police Chief Bernard K. Melekian said at a news conference.

Lozano was discovered about 1:34 p.m. by police and paramedics after a report of shots fired, Melekian said. The officer was not a patient at the facility, the chief said. Hospital officials said Lozano never entered the building at 2900 E. Del Mar Blvd.

Melekian said Lozano was dealing with some “personal issues,” but declined to say why the officer was at the hospital or whether he had requested help from the department.

Standing in front of Police Department headquarters, where the flags were at half-mast, Melekian extended the department’s sympathies to Lozano’s family. He was the sole support for his mother and grandmother, and was putting his sister through graduate school, Melekian said.

“He was highly regarded and well thought of by his peers,” the chief said. “This is a tragedy.”