'Less Lethal' Weapon Review Underway Following Officer-Involved Shootings

LOS ANGELES (CNS) - Los Angeles police Chief Michel Moore said today the department is reviewing its “less lethal” weapon options -- and its training procedures -- following two recent officer-involved shootings that resulted in civilians being killed by police gunfire.

Moore released dramatic body-camera footage Tuesday of a June shooting in Van Nuys that resulted in the death of a woman who was being held hostage by a knife-wielding man, who also was killed.

Moore said officers responded to a homeless outreach center in the 6400 block of Tyrone Avenue, near Victory Boulevard, around 1:10 p.m. June 16 on a report of a man with a knife assaulting a woman. After a tense standoff, officers fatally shot Guillermo Perez, 32, as he held a large serrated knife to the neck of Elizabeth Tollison, 49, Moore said.

“Tragically, the woman was also struck twice by gunfire,” Moore said.

Tollison died at a hospital two days later.

At a news conference at Los Angeles police headquarters today, Moore discussed the shooting and displayed an edited “critical briefing” video that included footage from officers' body cameras showing their actions at the shooting scene.

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 were forced to fire 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” weapon 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 announced it will file wrongful death, negligence and assault and battery claims against the city on behalf of Tollison's three adult children.

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 also reviewing any improvements it can make in its “command and control” training and procedures at crime scenes in the wake of these and other officer-involved shootings.

Photo: Getty Images


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