LAPD releases details on officer shooting of Watts man

Los Angeles police Tuesday released some details involving the fatal shooting last week of an armed man by an officer patrolling a housing project.

Shortly after 5 p.m. Thursday, anti-gang Officer Manuel Castaneda and his partner were patrolling the grounds of the sprawling Imperial Courts public housing project in Watts in a marked police vehicle, according to an LAPD statement.

The officers “encountered three known gang members” in a courtyard area near 114th and Grape streets, according to police sources and a formal statement released by the department. One of the men, James Davis, 18, grabbed a woman standing nearby and, in an apparent attempt to distract the officers, shoved the woman in their direction before running away, according to the statement.

The officers gave chase and “noticed that Davis appeared to be grasping at, or about, his waistband area,” according to the statement. Castaneda, who has been a Los Angeles Police Department officer for 5 1/2 years, fired his handgun when Davis pulled out a semiautomatic handgun and pointed it back toward the officers as he ran, the statement said. His partner, who has not been identified, did not shoot. A loaded 9mm semiautomatic pistol was recovered at the scene, according to the LAPD’s statement.

A police official with knowledge of the shooting, who requested that his name not be used because the investigation into the incident is ongoing and confidential, said Davis was struck in the back.

That revelation is likely to further stoke anger that has simmered among police critics and residents of Imperial Courts since the shooting.

Capt. Phillip Tingirides, who commands the LAPD division that patrols Watts, said he could not comment on the specific incident but said there are scenarios in which a gun-wielding suspect can be shot in the back during a foot pursuit. For example, a suspect could turn to point his weapon at an officer and then turn back to continue running. Or, if two officers are chasing a suspect from different directions, the suspect’s back could be exposed to one officer when the suspect turns to point his weapon at the other, Tingirides said.

At a news conference Tuesday, several people who said they had witnessed the shooting offered accounts that differed from the LAPD’s version of events. Jubilee Shine, a spokesman for the Coalition for Community Control Over the Police, which held the news conference, acknowledged that Davis had been carrying a handgun but challenged the notion that he’d pointed it at the officers. Instead, Shine said, several people alleged that Davis had dropped the handgun as he fled and that Castaneda fired after seeing the weapon fall to the ground.

The challenge of resolving such conflicting accounts will fall to detectives from the LAPD’s Force Investigation Division, which investigates incidents in which officers use deadly force.

Paul Weber, president of the union representing police officers, said Davis’ “death was a result of his own actions, which threatened the lives of our officers.”

joel.rubin@latimes.com