Long Beach Police Shootings Probed

Long Beach Police Chief Anthony Batts met Tuesday with about 70 community members and religious leaders to discuss investigations into three shootings by officers last week, two of them occurring within 10 hours.

Of the three men wounded in the shootings, two died, said Long Beach Police Sgt. David Cannan. He said two of those shot were Latino and the other was African American. The black man was unarmed when he was fatally shot.

Not since 1992 has Los Angeles County’s second-largest police department had that many officers shoot people in a single week, said Cannan. Last year, Long Beach had nine officer-involved shootings. There have been eight so far this year.

The department and the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office are investigating the shootings. The seven officers who discharged their guns were put on paid three-day leave, which is routine, and must be cleared for return to duty by the department psychologist.

The first of last week’s shootings occurred about 4 a.m. last Tuesday. The night before, Long Beach officers had been looking for Fidel Rosales, 23, a suspect in the June 6 stabbing murder of a 34-year-old woman.

At an apartment that appeared to have been broken into, Cannan said, police called in the SWAT team. Officers found Rosales under a child’s bed. Cannan said he had a gun in his hand and five SWAT officers opened fire, killing him.

About 10 hours later, police were called to a report of a kidnapping. As officers interviewed the alleged victim, the accused kidnapper pulled up in a car. Officers approached him and saw he had a gun, Cannan said.

A confrontation occurred and Officer Dwight Turner, with the department seven years, shot and wounded Ubaldo Vargas, 37, of Long Beach, Cannan said. It was not clear if a kidnapping had actually occurred or was attempted on the woman, who had a domestic relationship with Vargas. He remains hospitalized.

At about 11 p.m. Friday near Orange Avenue and 2nd Street, Officer David Garcia, a three-year department veteran, was flagged down by a man later identified as Keyante Reed, 22, of Los Angeles. Reed allegedly had an open container of alcohol and when the officer got out of his patrol car, Reed “yelled something and started to walk away,” Cannan said. The officer returned to his patrol car, called for backup and drove alongside Reed, who was behaving “erratically,” the officer reported.

“For an unknown reason,” Cannan said, “the subject charged the officer and became involved in a confrontation....” At some point, Reed also reached for the officer’s gun but was deterred, Cannan said.

Reed ran to the rear of a house, where Officer Garcia shot him. He was taken to Long Beach Memorial Medical Center, where he died at midday Saturday. What prompted the officer to shoot Reed, who was unarmed, was under investigation.