[symple_googlemap title=”Deputy-involved shooting” location=” 5300 block of Verona Street, Los Angeles, CA” height=”300″ zoom=”15″]
Two suspects were killed in a deputy-involved shooting in East Los Angeles on Sunday morning after one of them allegedly pointed a gun at a motorist and then menaced pursuing deputies, authorities said.
Both men, one 26 and the other 57, were pronounced dead at the scene of the 2:39 a.m. shooting in the 5300 block of Verona Street, said Deputy Lillian Peck of the Sheriff’s Information Bureau. That location is just southeast of Atlantic at Whittier boulevards.
No deputies were injured, according to the sheriff’s department.
The incident began when a 32-year-old man reported to deputies that he had been walking through the parking lot of a business in the 1100 block of Atlantic Boulevard about 2:20 a.m., when a light-colored SUV drove alongside him and a man in the passenger seat allegedly pointed a handgun at him, Peck said.
“No words were exchanged and the suspects drove away, north on Atlantic Boulevard,” she said.
The 32-year-old man got into his vehicle and followed the suspects while calling authorities and later saw and flagged down a sheriff’s patrol car to tell deputies what happened, Peck said.
The deputies located the suspects’ SUV and attempted to pull it over, but the driver only slowed down and then got out of it, she said.
The SUV continued a short distance and parked in an apartment complex driveway, Peck said.
Once the car parked, the passenger who had gotten out “started to pull a handgun out of his pants and point it in the direction of the deputies,” she said.
“At approximately the same time, suspect number two exited the driver’s side of his vehicle and stood behind suspect number one. At that time, a deputy-involved shooting occurred,” the deputy said.
Both men were struck by gunfire and pronounced dead at the scene and the suspect’s .45-caliber handgun was recovered, she said.
Alma Cabrera, a cousin of one of the deceased men, told ABC7 that her cousin, Eduardo Bermudez, 26, was attending a birthday when he was shot dead by sheriff’s deputies.
— City News Service