Officer Says He Shot Man After Feeling in Peril

A Long Beach police officer told investigators he felt in peril when he fatally shot an unarmed man from five feet away because the man had twice tried to grab the officer’s service revolver or holster moments earlier, the department said Monday.

Officer Dave Garcia, a three-year department veteran, fired once at Keyante Reed, 20, ending an incident that had begun barely three minutes earlier in a nearby 7-Eleven parking lot, where Reed flagged down the officer and yelled for help.

Reed, who was homeless, died July 17, the day after the shooting, at a hospital where lab tests revealed that he had an opiate and marijuana in his bloodstream, Deputy Chief Tim Jackman said. The Los Angeles County coroner’s office said Reed died of the single gunshot wound to the chest.

Recognizing the potential explosiveness of the incident, the Long Beach Police Department has tried to issue as swiftly as possible the details about the shooting, Jackman said, but first needed to ensure that any witnesses had been interviewed.

The department also was mindful of the Marcella Byrd case, where officers were criticized for fatally shooting Byrd, 57, a schizophrenic who had raised a knife at officers in 2002. Critics questioned whether officers should have realized that she was mentally ill and approached her accordingly.

Chief Anthony Batts, who is on vacation, met with the local NAACP chapter the day after Reed died, and with about 70 community leaders to describe the department’s investigation.

“Our investigations aren’t complete,” Jackman said, “but we have enough information that the chief felt we could offer to the community.”

As is standard when officers discharge their weapons, the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office also is investigating.

The shooting of Reed was the third Long Beach officer-involved shooting in a single week. Two of the shootings occurred July 13. One man was fatally wounded. The second man survived.

Those men were Latino; Reed was African American.

Garcia has returned to work but is not on patrol; he has temporarily been assigned to the investigative detail, Jackman said.

Jackman gave this account of the incident:

It was about 11:06 p.m. on July 16 when Reed, holding a beer, waved down Garcia. The officer pulled into the 7-Eleven parking lot, but Reed started swearing and walked into the intersection of 2nd Street and Orange Avenue. Garcia pulled out to the street, Reed stood in front of his squad car and screamed, “Kill me, kill me now.”

Garcia got out of the car and somewhere in those seconds the officer made the first of two calls for immediate backup.

Two witnesses told investigators that they saw Reed reach toward the officer’s holster. Garcia’s gun was drawn and pointed down and he used his left arm to push Reed away.

Reed then ran amid moving and parked cars and down a driveway. Garcia chased Reed and saw other officers pulling up.

Reed was behind a van and wouldn’t surrender, Jackman said.

Garcia ordered Reed to put his hands in the air but Reed refused and “began screaming and growling and ran toward Officer Garcia,” who fired at Reed, Jackman said.

What Garcia did not know, but investigators may consider in weighing Reed’s potential state of mind, Jackman said, was that Reed was a known gang member who had been arrested five times for public intoxication and also for battering his mother and preventing an officer from making an arrest.

Whether Garcia should have waited for the arriving officers to reach him is only one of the questions of judgment the review panel will weigh, Jackman said.