Man Deputy Killed Made Threats, Authorities Say

A knife-wielding man who was fatally shot Saturday by a deputy in Lancaster had shouted only minutes earlier, “I’m going to get a gun. You’re going to have to kill me,” the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said Sunday.

The 21-year-old man, Christian Wayne Gwinette, died after he was shot twice while lunging at a deputy with a butcher knife outside a home in the 500 block of East Kettering Street, authorities said.

The deputy was not injured, but officials withheld his name.

The incident began about 5 p.m. Saturday when the deputy went to investigate a traffic accident near Eastside Park at 5th Street East and Ivyton streets, Deputy Benita Hinojos said.

Witnesses told the deputy that a man in a pickup truck had smashed into a light pole at Kettering and 5th streets and drove over it twice before driving away. Then, the same driver hit another light pole at Ivyton and 5th, and the pickup came to rest in a nearby yard, Deputy Angie McLaughlin said.

The witnesses also pointed out the driver, who was running away from the accident and bleeding from a head wound, McLaughlin said.

Witnesses also told deputies that the man shouted about getting a gun as he fled his wrecked truck.

McLaughlin said that when the deputy pulled his car alongside the man, “the suspect turned and said, ‘I’m going to get a gun. You’re going to have to kill me.’ He then ran to a house . . . and locked the door.”

When the deputy went to the house, he saw a pool of blood on the front porch and the suspect rummaging through a kitchen drawer, McLaughlin said. The deputy rang the doorbell to check on the man’s condition.

The man opened the door and stood with a knife raised above his head, McLaughlin said. When he saw the deputy, he slammed the door and ran to the rear of the house, she said. The deputy, watching the man through the window, also ran toward the back of the house.

There, the man burst out the back door, holding a 14-inch butcher knife with an eight-inch blade, and climbed on top of a covered hot tub.

“The deputy repeatedly ordered the man to drop the knife,” McLaughlin said. “The man refused to drop the knife and leaped off the Jacuzzi at the deputy with the knife raised.”

The deputy fired twice with his 9-millimeter pistol, hitting the man in the torso both times, McLaughlin said.

Detectives had not determined if the man lived at the house where the shooting occurred, McLaughlin said, adding that no one else was in the house at the time.