Death of Man in El Monte Police Custody Investigated

Sheriff’s homicide detectives are investigating the death Sunday of a man who had struggled with El Monte police officers after a foot chase.

Scott Carrier, a coroner’s spokesman, said the identity of the 31-year-old El Monte resident was being withheld pending notification of kin. An autopsy was scheduled.

The chase began shortly after 4 p.m., when a uniformed El Monte police officer tried to question the man “about suspicious narcotics activity,” said El Monte police Capt. Chuck Fullington.

Sheriff’s Deputy Roberta C. Granek said detectives, based on interviews with El Monte officers, have pieced together the following narrative: After the man ran from the officer, the officer chased and caught him and the two fought. The suspect struck the officer several times in the face with his hands, Granek said.

The man broke free, scaled a chain-link fence and ran west along the sound wall south of the San Bernardino Freeway. The man ran about 60 yards, then doubled back through yards and was confronted by another El Monte police officer, Granek said. At one point, she said, the man tried to hit the officer with a cinder block but missed.

The man broke free despite efforts by a citizen to help the officer. Several police officers, their guns drawn, eventually cornered the man and restrained him, police said.

Fullington said the man “was handcuffed, sitting on the ground when officers noticed he had some difficulty breathing and called paramedics.” Before the paramedics arrived the man lost consciousness, he said.

The man was taken to Greater El Monte Hospital, where he was pronounced dead shortly thereafter. Three El Monte officers were injured and treated at the scene.

Investigators recovered a small amount of what they believe are illegal drugs from the man’s pants pockets.

Fullington said the El Monte officers, whose names were not released, are being interviewed by sheriff’s detectives and their own department.

Los Angeles sheriff’s detectives routinely investigate homicides or unusual deaths in El Monte.

Although El Monte’s 150-plus police officers have helped make the city of 116,000 among the safest of its size in the nation, the department has had some bad publicity. In 1999 an El Monte officer shot an unarmed grandfather in the back during a SWAT raid in Compton. The man’s family sued the department for wrongful death and the FBI civil rights division also initiated an investigation. Both the lawsuit and investigation are pending.