Man Is Fatally Shot as He Aims Rifle at Officers

A Los Angeles police officer shot and killed a man Monday who reportedly pointed a rifle at officers who were called about a possible burglar.

Police arriving at a home in the 7400 block of Oakdale Avenue in Winnetka discovered a broken rear window and saw a man inside, said Officer Charlotte Broughton, an LAPD spokeswoman. When he didn’t respond to their orders to come out, they routed him with pepper spray, she said. He then aimed a rifle in their direction, and one of the officers fired a single shot, hitting the man in the upper body.

He was pronounced dead at a local hospital, she said.

Police declined to identify the dead man, but a longtime neighbor who was questioned by detectives identified him as Joseph Viviano, who had been evicted from that house.

The neighbor, Preston Bingham, said Viviano, 49, had visited him Sunday night.

“He was kind of down in the dumps. He’d lost the house. . . . He was staying there when he wasn’t supposed to be,” Bingham said.

He said Viviano hadn’t held a steady job since the General Motors plant in Panorama City shut down in 1992. Viviano had suffered several tragedies in recent years, including the loss of both of his parents to cancer and the death of one his sons, Bingham said.

Pat Foster, another neighbor, said Viviano was a chronic drinker prone to outbursts of violence. She said she called police last year after he threatened her children with a rifle.

“He’d tell them, ‘Don’t walk in front of my house or I’ll blow you away,’ ” she said.

When officers arrived to investigate, she said, Viviano repeatedly screamed at them: “Just shoot me. Just shoot me.”

Of Monday’s shooting, she said, “It was building up to this.”

Bingham, who said he had known Viviano for 42 years, said the officers had no choice.

“Sometimes they wait too long [to react], and that’s how they get killed.”