Neighbors Tell of Gunman’s Odd Behavior Before Standoff

As investigators sifted through the charred rubble of an Echo Park home Friday, contrasting pictures emerged of the man believed to have died in a fiery shootout after holding police at bay for 12 hours.

Neighbors said the 40-year-old man who lived in the Lucretia Avenue home seemed like a nice guy who often kept to himself and loved fixing up his modest wood-frame home. Others said he would yell at himself late at night and pound on his walls.

One woman said the man shouted obscenities at her family last year because they used a wood-burning stove, which upset him because he said it polluted the environment.

“We were scared of him,” Ann Summa said. More than 50 rounds were fired from the house during the daylong siege that began after the man called police to say someone was breaking into his house early Thursday. After police arrived he opened fire on officers, almost hitting one.

As the ordeal progressed, the gunman asked to speak to his girlfriend and lawyer. They were summoned to the house, police said, but failed to talk the man into surrendering.

“We did everything we could to try to bring it to a peaceful conclusion,” said Los Angeles Police Department spokesman Lt. Horace Frank. Police did not release the name of the man, whom they portrayed as emotionally disturbed.

Neighbors were either evacuated or forced to stay in their homes during the standoff.

Officers fired more than 100 tear gas canisters. As a last resort, police said, they used flash-bang grenades, which create an explosion to distract suspects. The blaze broke out a few minutes later.

Frank said an LAPD investigation would examine the tactics used by officers and try to determine the cause of the fire.

At the scene in the 1600 block of Lucretia Avenue, all that remained of the house Friday was a charred foundation and burned walls. Neighbors said late Friday that police had taken more than a dozen rifles from the residence.

The coroner’s office said Friday that it may not be able to identify the body or the cause of death until Monday.

The man lived at the home for at least seven years, neighbors said. He had made a number of improvements to the property. He installed new plumbing, built a wrought-iron fence, planted flowers and recently put in a new roof by himself.

“You’d always hear the table saw going,” said Stephen Seemayer, who lived next door. “He seemed like an OK guy.”

Seemayer’s son, Zach Seemayer, 14, said he recalled often hearing his neighbor pounding on walls and shouting at himself late at night.

“It was kind of weird,” he said. “I always wondered what was going on.”

Summa, who lives behind the home, said the man frightened her family two summers ago after bursting into the yard about 11 p.m.

He was upset, Summa said, because of the smoke from the family’s wood-burning stove. He said it smelled bad and hurt the environment.

“He was screaming obscenities,” Summa said. “I never fired up the stove again because I was so freaked out by him.”

A number of neighbors say they were startled by the violent siege Thursday. But not Summa. “He was the kind of guy,” she said, “who you knew was going to blow.”