Claim Filed In Fatal LAPD Shooting Of Woman Held Hostage
LOS ANGELES (CBSLA) — A law firm founded by the late Johnnie L. Cochran Jr., a member of O.J. Simpson's "Dream Team," says it will file a claim Wednesday in the death of a woman who was fatally shot by LAPD gunfire while she was being held hostage by a man with a knife.
The June 16 officer-involved shooting in the 6400 block of Tyrone Avenue in Van Nuys is the second time a civilian has been killed by police fire in a six-week period. The LAPD released body-camera footage of the shooting Tuesday.
"Because of a series of training violations, because of a series of actions which fell completely below the standard of their own training protocols, what we had was the death of a completely innocent person that was totally and utterly preventable," attorney Brian T. Dunn said Wednesday, as two of the victim's children stood nearby.
LAPD Chief Michel Moore said officers were dispatched to a homeless outreach center on the report of a man with a knife assaulting a woman. Amid the tense standoff, officers fatally shot Guillermo Perez, 32, as he began to cut the neck of Elizabeth Tollison, 49.
According to Moore, officers had ordered Perez to drop his knife, but he refused, ultimately holding it to Tollison's neck. An officer had fired a beanbag shotgun during the confrontation, but it failed to stop Perez and the officers fired their handguns as the suspect pressed the knife into his hostage's neck, Moore said. Eighteen rounds were fired.
Moore said his department is reviewing a new "40mm launcher" that fires a larger and more powerful projectile than the current beanbag shotguns. The weapon is more accurate and effective up to a distance of 100 feet, he said.
The Cochran Firm says it will file wrongful death, negligence and assault and battery claims against the city on behalf of Tollison's three adult children. A claim is a precursor to a lawsuit.
Dunn detailed what he said were several failings by the officers on the scene, including yelling conflicting commands to the suspect and,
ultimately, opening fire when doing so put Tollison's life in jeopardy.
"You had three officers firing, and we have accounted for 18 total rounds. And during the sequence of firing, the suspect is in very close proximity to my clients' mother," Dunn said. "It is illogical and inconceivable for an officer on the scene to not realize that she will certainly be shot if 18 rounds are fired, and they're fired from opposite directions."
About six weeks after the June 16 shooting, LAPD officers exchanged gunfire with a suspect who was fleeing into a Silver Lake Trader Joe's store on July 21, and the store's assistant manager was killed in the crossfire. Moore said 27-year-old Melyda Corado was killed by a police bullet.
According to the LAPD, two officers -- identified as Sinlen Tse and Sarah Winans -- fired a total of eight shots, one of which struck the suspect, 28-year-old Gene Evin Atkins, in the left arm. Another struck Corado, traveling through her arm and into her body, police said.
Atkins surrendered after a roughly three-hour hostage situation at the market. He has been charged with Corado's murder, under the legal theory that he set the circumstances in motion that ended with her death.
Moore said Tuesday his department is also reviewing any improvements it can make in its "command and control" training and procedures at crime scenes in the aftermath of these and other officer-involved shootings.
(© Copyright 2018 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. City News Service contributed to this report.)
