Death of Deputy’s Killer Is Called a Suicide

A gang member who killed a Los Angeles sheriff’s deputy Saturday shot himself in the head after he was struck by shotgun pellets from another deputy returning fire, sheriff’s officials said Monday.

The county coroner, however, said a ruling on the cause of death will not be made until further tests are completed.

Alfredo Reyes, 21, fatally shot Deputy David Powell through the door of an Artesia home Saturday morning and then was wounded by another deputy, sheriff investigators said. About nine hours after deputies first tried to entered the home, a SWAT team entered the home and found Reyes’ body.

“The wound [Reyes] sustained from the shotgun would have been fatal, but he shot himself in the head before he bled to death,” said Sheriff’s Capt Frank Merriman, head of the sheriff’s Homicide Bureau.

Merriman said Powell, an 18-year veteran, was hit by one of four shots that Reyes fired through the front door of the home. The single fatal shot, he said, pierced Powell’s right shoulder and went into his chest after passing through an armhole in his protective vest. Powell, 42, was hit as he and other deputies were withdrawing from the house after failing to kick in the front door.

The deputies, he said, were pursuing Reyes in connection with an earlier gang-related shooting nearby and had been told that he might be holding a woman hostage inside the home. Contrary to initial sheriff’s accounts that a woman ran from the home before the exchange of shots, Merriman said Monday that the two women who lived there had escaped before the deputies arrived.

Merriman said the pursuit began shortly before 11 a.m. after deputies in Norwalk received reports of gunfire on 165th Street. A short time later, a couple of rounds were fired near the border between Lakewood and Artesia.

Several patrol cars and a helicopter responded, and two suspects were seen running through the streets of Artesia’s. Reyes ran toward a home in the rear of a lot in the 12000 block of 167th Street, Merriman said.

Merriman said Reyes barged inside the residence, a converted garage. There were two women inside, he said. Moments later, a relative came to the door to warn the women about the police pursuit.

“During that conversation the girls managed to indicate to the relative the man was inside their house, so the male relative grabbed both of them and they ran,” Merriman said.

When deputies arrived at the front home on the lot, they were told that a woman was still in the rear home with the suspect, whom they were able to see through a window.

Convinced that Reyes was holding a hostage, they tried to kick in the door. Powell died at a Lynwood hospital 90 minutes after he was shot.

Reyes’ body and a handgun were found inside the home after a SWAT team entered about 8:30 p.m. Reyes, of Irvine, was a member of an Artesia area street gang, sheriff’s investigators said.

An alleged accomplice, Robert Hernandez, 22, of Buena Park, who was found by deputies hiding outside a nearby home, will not be charged in Powell’s death, Merriman said. Hernandez was taken into custody for a probation violation and transferred to Orange County.

Funeral arrangements for Powell were pending Monday. A Torrance resident, he is survived by his wife, Emma, their 7-year-old daughter, and three adult stepdaughters.

At his swearing-in ceremony for his second term Monday, a somber Sheriff Lee Baca honored Powell and three other deputies who have died in the line of duty during the last 22 months.

“These four deputy sheriffs gave their all for the county of Los Angeles, the state of California and America,” Baca said. “As I accept my second term in office, I accept it in their memory.”

At the direction of Gov. Gray Davis, state Capitol flags were lowered to half-staff Monday.