A 35-year-old woman wielding a metal dumbbell bar and who allegedly assaulted four people before she was fatally shot by police in Tarzana was identified Tuesday.
Los Angeles Police Department responded around 8:30 a.m. Sunday to several calls of an assault with a deadly weapon suspect in the area of Reseda Boulevard and Hatteras Street. The suspect, who the Los Angeles County Medical -Examiner’s office identified as Jessica Brown, allegedly attacked four victims along Reseda with a metal pipe, leaving them with serious head and face injuries. When officers arrived on the scene, they encountered Brown near the parking lot of a gas station at Reseda and Burbank boulevards, according to the LAPD.
“As the suspect held the pipe and advanced toward the officers, they deployed a Taser and 40mm foam baton round and an officer-involved shooting occurred,” police said in a statement.” The metal pipe was determined to be a metal dumbbell bar, approximately 14 inches long.”
Paramedics rushed Brown to a hospital, where she was pronounced dead. Two of the injured victims remained hospitalized with stable vital signs, police said. No officers were injured.
Investigators learned Brown was a suspect in attacks on four other people Saturday, police said. “A mother and child were in a parked vehicle when the suspect smashed the windows,” police said. “Two males were also struck with a similarly described weapon yesterday, one in the head causing a cut, and the other in the arm. Both declined medical treatment.”