Armed Woman Killed by Police

A woman was shot and killed by a Los Angeles police officer Monday morning after she pointed a semiautomatic handgun at the officer’s partner in a South Los Angeles parking lot, a police spokesman said.

The woman was shot in the chest about 8:30 a.m. as one of the officers tried to subdue her with a shotgun loaded with a beanbag, authorities said. Paramedics rushed her to a nearby hospital, where she was pronounced dead. Her name was not released.

Within hours of the shooting, Police Chief Bernard C. Parks was in the market parking lot at Vernon Avenue and Wall Street speaking with investigators. It was the second officer-involved shooting death in three days in South Los Angeles.

Sgt. Willie Guerrero said Newton Division officers went to the parking lot after receiving a report from a market customer that she had been confronted in her car by a woman with a gun.

“When the officers arrived, they told her to put the gun down and get out of the car,” said Guerrero. As one officer loaded his shotgun with a beanbag and approached the car, the other took a position nearby as backup.

Then quickly, Guerrero said, the woman got out of the car from the passenger side and aimed her gun at the officer with the shotgun.

“When she pointed the weapon, the other officer, fearing for her partner’s life, fired one shot,” he said. The other officer also fired the shotgun beanbag.

The woman dropped the gun and fell back into the car, Guerrero said. The sounds of gunfire, helicopters overhead and police cars racing to the scene shocked people living nearby.

“This is scary,” one longtime resident said. “You don’t want to be out on the street. It’s not safe.”

A 12-year-old girl on her way to school was hit by a police car responding to the scene. She suffered minor injuries as she crossed the street.

On Saturday afternoon, a Los Angeles police officer shot and killed a 76-year-old man who allegedly flashed a knife in the 1000 block of West Manchester Avenue. Joe Joshua died at the scene after an officer fired a fired a single round at him.