Police Kill Man Who Refuses to Drop Ax

Long Beach police said Wednesday that officers fatally shot an ax-wielding man who refused orders to drop it as he continued to approach, repeating, “You’re gonna have to shoot me.”

The man’s wife, Tanya Tolbert, called 911 twice Tuesday morning, police said. The second time, the phone was dropped but a dispatcher heard loud arguing, children sobbing and a man screaming that he was going to kill them, police said.

Tolbert was hiding at a neighbor’s home with the estranged couple’s three children when officers arrived at her home on 68th Street at 10 a.m. They knocked on the open front door, got no answer and entered, finding themselves across a 26-foot-long hallway from Rodney David Tolbert, 35, police said.

Tolbert was holding an ax, said Sgt. Paul LeBaron, a department spokesman, and officers had learned he was an “ex-felon on probation for robbery, and had an arrest warrant carrying $25,000 bail for charges of spousal abuse and resisting arrest,” LeBaron said.

The officers repeatedly ordered Tolbert to drop the ax, but he continued walking toward them with it, LeBaron said.

When he was about 12 feet away, shouting they’d have to shoot him, they fired six times, police said. He was wounded in the torso and died at a hospital.

In a city where concern lingers over a spate of officer-involved deaths in the last few years, Police Chief Tony Batts held a news conference Wednesday to offer an unprecedented amount of detail on the shooting.

“We are going to be very proactive in getting this information out to the community,” LeBaron said. “Chief Batts is making an effort to show this department is transparent and we aren’t holding back.”