Security Guard Slain by 2 Police Officers

A Sheriff’s Department security guard was shot to death by police early Monday after he pointed a pistol at two patrol officers who had stopped his car, authorities reported.

Police said Alan T. Howard, 35, of Torrance was shot about 2:20 a.m. near Alamitos Avenue and 1st Street when he failed to obey commands to drop a handgun he had pulled from the interior of his 1998 Jeep Cherokee.

Minutes before the shooting, police said they received a 911 call from a 21-year-old woman who had been a passenger in Howard’s car and apparently fled in fear from his vehicle at Alamitos and Broadway.

“She was frantic and very panicked,” said Officer David Marander, a police spokesman. “She believed her life was in jeopardy and her safety was immediately at risk.”

According to authorities, the officers who spotted the green Cherokee believed that Howard was searching for the woman because he was driving around Alamitos and Broadway, where she had escaped from his vehicle.

Marander said the two officers pulled Howard over and he stepped from the Cherokee. As the officers walked up to him, Howard reportedly reached back inside the vehicle and pulled out a pistol.

When he failed to obey orders to drop the gun, both officers opened fire, fatally wounding the security guard, Marander said.

According to the Sheriff’s Department, Howard had worked for two years as a security guard at county courthouses.