Police Kill Two Men in Separate Incidents

Southland police officers shot and killed two men Tuesday, a burglary suspect in Watts who tried to grab an officer’s gun and a 21-year-old in Culver City who had pointed his weapon at two officers, authorities said.

Police have not identified either suspect.

In Watts, two officers were patrolling the Nickerson Gardens housing complex at 3:30 a.m. when a woman flagged them down and said a man was breaking into a van parked nearby, police said.

The officers saw the suspect in the van and ordered him out. He crawled out, police said, but tried to run away. When the officers caught him, “the suspect became combative,” according to an LAPD statement.

Police said a struggle ensued in which the suspect tried to seize the officers’ weapons. As one officer fell, the suspect tried to grab the officer’s weapon. The officer’s partner fired twice, hitting the suspect, officials said.

Paramedics pronounced the man dead at the scene.

The officer who fired was treated at a hospital for a minor hand injury. Her partner also was treated and released.

Later that day, a resident reported to Culver City police that a man covered with blood was walking in the 4000 block of Madison Avenue.

Two patrol officers arriving about 2 p.m. did not see the bloody man, but saw someone carrying an assault rifle with a bayonet. The man, who was wearing a green camouflage jacket, ignored orders to drop the rifle, Lt. Ray Scheu said. “He turned toward officers with his weapon in his hand. The officers, fearing he was going to shoot them, fired their own weapons.”

The suspect, who was shot several times, died a short time later at UCLA Medical Center.

Afterward, officers found the man who had been shot when he delivered a mattress to an apartment, police said.

“He was covered in blood,” Scheu said. “But, fortunately, he had only a minor graze wound to his head.”