Sheriff’s deputy stabbed, 1 suspect dead in violent confrontation in Commerce

A Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy opened fire during a confrontation in Commerce early Friday that left a woman dead, a man injured and the deputy hospitalized with stab wounds to his face, authorities said.

The shooting occurred after deputies responded to a call shortly before 4 a.m. from the Speedway Express gas station at Whittier Boulevard and Gerhart Avenue, where a man was said to be trying to start a fire using gasoline, said sheriff’s homicide Lt. Derrick Alfred.

When deputies arrived, they confronted a man standing at the rear of an SUV parked in front of the gas station’s convenience store, Alfred said. One deputy told the man to walk back toward him, but as the man got closer he turned around and immediately attacked the deputy, Alfred said.

While the man was on top of the deputy, a woman armed with a metal object got out of a parked SUV and ran toward the deputy and stabbed him once in the face, Alfred said. The deputy then pulled his handgun and fired several rounds at the suspects, striking both.

The woman was pronounced dead at the scene. The man and the deputy were taken to a hospital.

It was unclear whether a round went through the man and hit the woman, or whether it hit the woman directly, Alfred said.

The shooting was the 19th so far in 2021 in Los Angeles County in which someone has been hit by a deputy’s gunfire.