Mother Says Police Didn’t Need to Kill Teen-Age Son : Pacoima: Woman says she sought law enforcement help in subduing the youth because he was ‘acting crazy’ and behaving violently.

The mother of a Pacoima teen-ager shot to death by police when he attacked an officer with a broomstick said Tuesday that she asked police to subdue her son because he was “acting crazy”--drinking holy water and claiming to be Christ and Satan--but believes they could have done so without killing him.

“I called police to control him at that moment, not to kill him,” said Santos Salcido, mother of Efrain Santos Lopez, 18, who was killed about 1 a.m. Monday.

“He wasn’t an animal for them to kill like that,” she said.

However, Salcido’s description of her son’s violent behavior before the shooting appeared to support statements by police and witnesses who described Lopez as out of control when he confronted the officers. By her account, she did not see the encounter that led to her son’s death.

Lopez, who police said was an active gang member, was shot nine times by Officer Neil Goldberg as he charged the officer with a broomstick, yelling “Shoot me! Kill me!” police said. Goldberg, a four-year veteran, was placed on non-field duty pending the outcome of a departmental investigation that could take two months, police officials said.

A toxicology report to determine if Lopez was under the influence of drugs will take up to two weeks to complete, but police said they found a small bag of what might be rock cocaine near his body. A test to determine the contents of the bag will take about a week, said Los Angeles Police Lt. John Dunkin.

Salcido, who lives with Lopez’s stepfather, Miguel Cortez, and her daughter, Michelle, in a converted garage on Eustace Street, said she had never seen her son violent before. She said although he was acting bizarrely she does not believe that he was under the influence of drugs because he wasn’t stumbling.

Salcido said Lopez showed up at the family home late Sunday night or early Monday morning “with a wild look in his eyes.” She said he came into her home and drank a small glass of holy water, saying he was Christ. He then took a string of rosary beads from the wall, put them on his head and walked out, she said.

He returned a short time later, Salcido said, claiming to be Satan, and said he was going to take his half-sister, Michelle, with him. Salcido said she tried to stop him, but Lopez knocked her down. Lopez’s stepfather tried to subdue Lopez but was overpowered, she said.

Salcido said she and her husband were able to lock Lopez out of the home, but Lopez retaliated by using a broomstick to break a front window and then the windshield of their car, she said.

Salcido said she called police, hoping they could subdue Lopez until he could calm down. But a few minutes after she made the call, Salcido said, she heard gunshots and told her husband, “I think they just shot my son.”

She left her home to spend the night with a relative, however, without confirming the death, she said. She noticed a crowd of people and a group of police officers standing around a prone body on a nearby street, she said, but police at the scene would not talk to her and she could not get close enough to identify the body.

She did not know for sure that it was her son who had been killed until an officer notified her about 7 a.m. Monday, she said.

Salcido, who is out of work and says she cannot afford to bury her son, said she plans to hire an attorney to see that the officer who shot her son is punished.

She did not dispute police descriptions of her son as an active gang member but said his most serious criminal offense was for truancy. Dunkin said he could not disclose Lopez’s juvenile criminal history, but he said Lopez had a record of offenses more serious than truancy.