{"id":455508,"date":"2010-03-21T15:23:15","date_gmt":"2010-03-21T19:23:15","guid":{"rendered":"tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d8341c630a53ef0120a95f4095970b"},"modified":"2010-03-21T19:25:08","modified_gmt":"2010-03-21T23:25:08","slug":"two-officer-involved-deaths-investigated-in-downey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/455508","title":{"rendered":"Two officer-involved deaths investigated in Downey"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Los Angeles County Sheriff\u2019s Department is investigating<br \/>\ntwo recent deaths in which Downey police officers were involved. <\/p>\n<p>On Saturday, officers from the Downey Police Department shot and killed a man wielding an ax, said L.A. County Sheriff\u2019s Capt. Ray Leyva. The man, believed to be in his 30s, was walking north in the middle<br \/>\nof the southbound lanes of Paramount Boulevard, near Imperial Highway, about<br \/>\n6:30 p.m. Officers ordered him several times to stop and drop the weapon, Levya said, but<br \/>\nhe refused and advanced toward them with the ax raised over his head. <\/p>\n<p>&quot;Fearing for their safety, the officers fired their weapons<br \/>\nat the suspect and struck him,&quot; he said. <\/p>\n<p>The man was taken to a local hospital, where he was pronounced<br \/>\ndead. He has not been identified, pending notification of next of kin. The hatchet was<br \/>\nrecovered.<\/p>\n<p>The incident occurred one day after 31-year-old Albert<br \/>\nValencia died after Downey police used a Taser to subdue him after<br \/>\na foot chase. <\/p>\n<p>Officers were called to an LA Fitness health club at Firestone Boulevard<br \/>\nand Ryerson Avenue about 9 a.m. Friday after patrons reported that a man<br \/>\nwas acting strangely and threatening people inside the gym, according to a statement from the L.A. County Sheriff&#8217;s Department.<\/p>\n<p>Upon arrival, officers attempted to stop Valencia, who<br \/>\nwas driving his car out of the parking lot. The officers reported that they saw Valencia brandish a knife as they approached him, the statement said.<\/p>\n<p>Valencia stopped his vehicle at Almira and<br \/>\nBlumont roads in South Gate and fled into a yard, where officers became involved in a &quot;physical altercation&quot; with him and used a Taser, according to the statement.<\/p>\n<p>Shortly afterward, Valencia became unresponsive, and officers<br \/>\nperformed CPR until the fire department arrived. He was taken to a<br \/>\nlocal hospital and pronounced dead.<\/p>\n<p>&#8212; Corina Knoll<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/projects.latimes.com\/homicide-report\/map\/\" style=\"display: inline;\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Maptease\" class=\"asset asset-image  at-xid-6a00d8341c630a53ef0120a845c3e0970b \" src=\"http:\/\/latimesblogs.latimes.com\/.a\/6a00d8341c630a53ef0120a845c3e0970b-640wi\" style=\"width: 620px;\"><\/img><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Learn about more than <a href=\"http:\/\/projects.latimes.com\/homicide\/circumstance\/officer-involved-shooting\/\">100 fatal officer-involved shootings in Los Angeles County since January 2007<\/a>\u00a0on the Times&#8217; interactive <a href=\"http:\/\/projects.latimes.com\/homicide-report\/map\/\">Homicide Report<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Los Angeles County Sheriff\u2019s Department is investigating two recent deaths in which Downey police officers were involved. On Saturday, officers from the Downey Police Department shot and killed a man wielding an ax, said L.A. County Sheriff\u2019s Capt. Ray Leyva. The man, believed to be in his 30s, was walking north in the middle [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5746,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-455508","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/455508","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5746"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=455508"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/455508\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=455508"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=455508"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=455508"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}