Update on Officer Involved Shooting

I spoke this morning with the press department of the LA Sheriff's Dept. regarding the Officer Involved Shooting of Jan. 30th. They again read me the same press release that was issued the day of the shooting. I pointed out that this is five weeks later, and I'm still hearing the same thing I heard the day of the shooting. I was again told that maybe I could get more information from the investigating officers in the homicide division. For clarification, there was no homicide, nobody died, but apparently the homicide division is doing the investigation. The person that answered the phone told me that Det. Aguilera (one of the three officers whose name is listed on the press release as investigating the case) was in, and transferred me. I left a voice mail, about 8:30am. I think it was probably obvious I wasn't happy about having left four voice mail messages over the course of a month without a single return call.

I left a message for Chief Diaz, who I am sure is still not allowed to speak about it until the investigation is closed, but I asked her to please try and get the Sheriff's Dept. to return my call.

I also spoke with City Manager Elaine Aguilar, who told me that she understands the investigation is not complete, and she told me she would contact the Sheriff's Dept. herself to get, at the very least, an estimate of how long until the investigation is complete, and a report issued. I will say this: The day of the shooting, I spoke with a person who seemed to have some knowledge of the situation. This person told me the name of the officer involved. That name has not been released publicly, and I have no official confirmation on the officer's identity, so I'm not publishing it, but I do know that I saw that officer, in uniform, a couple days after the incident. He was walking on the sidewalk in front of the PD, so I have no way of knowing if he was on duty or not.

Also, for the reader who expressed concern about the City's financial status if the investigation reveals that the officer was in the wrong and the City loses a lawsuit with damages (in light of the City being self-insured). In discussing this with City Manager Aguilar, she said that the City is not self-insured, it's part of a pooled insurance program where Cities try to save money by working together. "The city gets their liability protection coverage through the California Joint Powers Insurance Authority... The equivalent of a deductible would be $30,000, so the City would pay the first $30,000 on a claim, and then everything above that amount, there's a combination of pooling the losses with other cities so the losses are spread out among everyone in the Insurance Authority, and then there's also insurance, but the City's total liability coverage for a claim, we have $50 million in coverage, so we don't have to worry about going bankrupt if we're hit with a large liability claim." Bear in mind that neither I nor the City Manager have any information that would indicate the Police Officer in question did anything wrong, we're just attempting to answer a reader's "what if" question.

UPDATE MARCH 6TH
Since posting the above, I have received a voice mail message from the Chief informing me that she has contacted the Sheriff''s Dept. and asked them to contact me, and she left me the name of an investigator that I can attempt to contact. Chief Diaz has also confirmed that "The officer involved is on administrative leave pending the outcome of the internal investigation."