Deputies Shoot Knife-Wielding Woman at Market

A knife-wielding woman was shot and critically wounded by Sheriff’s deputies outside a Pavilions grocery store in West Hollywood Friday night.

The confrontation occurred at 7:45 p.m. at Santa Monica and Robertson Boulevards. Deputy Steve Flamm said officers tried to subdue the woman by shooting her with bean bags and pepper spray. When neither worked and she continued threatening them with the knife, they shot her in the abdomen, he said.

The woman, who was taken to a hospital, was believed to be in critical condition.

West Hollywood City Councilman Steve Martin, who had been shopping in the store, said he was immediately briefed by Sheriff’s deputies and store employees. According to them, he said, the woman, who was described as white and in her late 40s, had come into the store at about 7:45 p.m. wielding a knife and badly frightening employees.

The woman said “people were out to get her,” Martin said. Employees called the Sheriff’s Department, but when deputies arrived, she had disappeared, Martin said.

She returned, and there was a confrontation with deputies just outside the doors of the supermarket.

Flamm said two deputies approached the woman, who “was menacing officers” with a long-handled knife and holding it to her chest. After she ignored their orders to drop it, a deputy fired once, striking her in the leg, Flamm said. The woman was undeterred, he said. They then fired bean bag rounds at her and sprayed her with pepper spray, but she continued to wave the knife, he said. They then shot her once in the midsection.

Employees who saw the shooting were taken to the sheriff’s West Hollywood Station to be interviewed.

Martin said store employees thought deputies acted appropriately.

Recalling that a homeless man was shot and killed at a Coffee Bean in the Sunset Plaza Shopping Center in West Hollywood, Martin said, “We are really concerned because this is the second shooting we’ve had in two weeks.”

Police taped off the shooting scene but the store remained open.