Two police shootings rock city
The day after back-to-back shootings by Los Angeles police officers on the same Wilmington block, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and Police Chief William J. Bratton on Friday addressed the high number of deadly confrontations officers have been engaged in this year.
"It is regrettable that there is so much violence in this city," Bratton said at a news conference, where he welcomed back an officer who had been wounded in one of the year's shootouts. "But, also, on the other hand, we need to be thankful that we have men and women in this department who go toward that danger."
Los Angeles Police Department officers have fired their weapons in 13 incidents this year -- hitting their target in all but one encounter. Four times, suspects also opened fire on police.
The number of officer- involved shootings is two fewer than during the same period in 2007, but the toll has been more dramatic.
Eleven people have been killed this year, compared with five at this time last year. And, last month, the department was left badly shaken when Randal Simmons, a veteran officer from the department's elite SWAT unit, was killed during a shootout with a mentally ill man, who had killed three family members and barricaded himself in his home.
James Veenstra, another SWAT officer who was shot in the face while storming the man's house alongside Simmons, was praised by Bratton and Villaraigosa, who called the officer "a profile in courage."
His jaw wired shut after reconstructive surgery, Veenstra thanked the doctors and medical staff who have treated him and the hundreds of well-wishers who have flooded his home with cards, flowers, donations and phone calls. He declined to discuss the deadly showdown, saying only, "I never lost consciousness; I remember everything."
The latest spasm of violence unfolded late Thursday in Wilmington, where police were drawn into two unrelated shootouts within yards of each other.
About 9 p.m., two officers stopped Marcos Ernesto Macias, 36, near L Street and Watson Avenue for riding a bike at night with no lights, said Deputy Chief Kenneth Garner. The officers grabbed Macias when he shoved his hands into his pockets and then shot him after Macias fired several shots from a gun inside his clothing, Garner said.
Macias, whom police later learned had been released from prison on parole two days earlier after serving time for murder, died later that night in a hospital.
