The Los Angeles Police Department on Thursday released still images lifted from security videotapes showing that Jose Raul Pena was gripping his 19-month-old daughter with one arm and shooting with the other during a 2 1/2 -hour police standoff Sunday.
The department also revealed further details of the bloody shootout in Watts, which resulted in the deaths of Pena and his young daughter, Suzie Marie, and the wounding of LAPD Officer Daniel Sanchez. The 35-year-old car dealer used a stolen gun during the incident, and had a plastic bag of cocaine with him, police said.
But breaking from past practice, police declined to release the names of the officers who fired their weapons. Suzie was killed by a bullet to the head from a police rifle, authorities said this week, but the LAPD has not determined who the shooter was.
In other high-profile shootings, the LAPD has promptly provided the public with the identities of officers involved -- in some cases as soon as the day of the incident.
Officials have said 11 officers fired their weapons during the showdown. Some relatives of Pena have challenged police accounts that the auto-shop owner used his child as a shield, even questioning whether he was armed at all.
In response, the LAPD on Thursday sought to demonstrate that Pena had provoked the confrontation.
The video images clearly show a man said by police to be Pena emerging from the door to a small interior office into a cluttered, open area of the dealership. One of his arms is circled around the toddler; the other is held straight out, gripping a 9-millimeter Beretta pistol as he fires out an exterior door.
"We are being accused of ... executing him for no reason at all. It is not true," Assistant Chief George Gascon said at a news conference.
The pictures were "offered to reassure the public that the department is being as transparent as possible," he said. "We realize the family is grieving and experiencing incredible loss, but ... rumors serve only to promote distrust."
Police Chief William J. Bratton was not at the news conference. He was out of town because his mother is ill.
Other videotape pictures show blurred images that appear to be Pena in a baseball cap and red shirt moving in and out of the door of the office, the child in his arms.
The images are shot from above, and the details are difficult to make out. But in at least two images, he appears to be shooting.
