Police Kill Man Armed With a Knife
A man who dared police officers to shoot him and then lunged at them with a knife was shot and killed early Friday at a downtown bus terminal, Los Angeles police said.
No officers or bystanders were injured in the incident at 2 a.m. at the Greyhound bus station in the 1700 block of 7th Street, said Officer Sara Faden, a Los Angeles Police Department spokeswoman.
Off-duty LAPD officers working as security guards called Newton Division patrol officers with a report of a man, 36, acting erratically and picking fights in the station’s parking lot, Faden said.
When the man refused to surrender, police repeatedly shot at him with a stun gun, which delivers 50,000 volts of electricity and is designed to immobilize a suspect. But the man shielded himself with a rubber floor mat.
After he continued to refuse to surrender, officers fired several less-than-lethal rounds from a beanbag shotgun, police said.
The man then dared the officers to “shoot him with a real gun,” according to LAPD investigators, and charged at the officers with a knife.
Two of the five officers present opened fire, killing the man.
Police did not release the name of the man. Detectives are investigating whether the man tried to commit “suicide by cop,” meaning he wanted police to kill him.
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