Man Slain by Police Had Threatened Girlfriend

PANORAMA CITY —  A day after one of their neighbors died in a gunfight with police, residents of an apartment building described the dead man Sunday as relaxed and easygoing, a person who seemed to blend in at the usually sedate complex.

“He was always calm,” said neighbor Carlos Perez. But on Saturday, Perez said, that demeanor changed and the man became violent with his girlfriend.

“They had a fight, and he had been drinking beer all day,” Perez said in Spanish. “Then he put the gun to her head in the parking lot, and the manager saw and called police.”

The man, whose identity has not been released, was hit several times in the upper body and died at the scene Saturday night, said Officer Cherie Clair of the Los Angeles Police Department.

One officer, Elizabeth Green, 33, was injured when she was struck by a bullet in the left elbow. Green was listed in good condition at Holy Cross Medical Center, police said.

Neighbors at the crowded but well-kept apartment building on Rayen Street where the shootings occurred said the boyfriend stayed there with a young mother of two sons, 12 and 5.

The woman kept to herself and rarely let her children play outside on the apartment’s patio, the neighbors said.

When the officers arrived Saturday, the woman told them her boyfriend was armed and holed up in her apartment. As police entered the apartment, the man shot at them with a .38-caliber handgun, Clair said.

“We heard a lot of shots, about eight,” said neighbor Margarita Perez. “One after the other.”

“There was blood all over the front of the apartment, mostly from the officer,” said Maria Gonzalez, who grabbed her 1 1/2-year-old son in her arms upon hearing shots. “Everyone was scared. My son was crying and couldn’t sleep all night.”

After the shooting, neighbors cleaned up the blood in front of Apartment 45. They said that the mostly Latino neighborhood--which ironically had hosted an anti-crime rally Saturday morning--can be dangerous but their building seemed safe.

“We always see the police in the neighborhood, but it isn’t bad here,” Gonzalez said.

Perez agreed. “This is the first real problem here,” she said.