A Los Angeles man who pleaded no contest to assault and other charges stemming from an attack on a police officer and a watch commander at the Los Angeles Police Department’s Harbor Station in San Pedro was sentenced Wednesday to 33 years in state prison.
Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Debra Cole said it was “mind-boggling to me,” noting that Jose Cerpa Guzman had no previous criminal record.
“Your choices, Mr. Guzman, have left some devastating consequences,” the judge told the 34-year-old defendant.
Deputy District Attorney Geoff Lewin said no one knows “why he did this to this day.”
Guzman pleaded no contest March 23 to two counts of assault with a semiautomatic firearm on a peace officer and one count each of robbery and evading a peace officer in a plea deal that resulted in two attempted murder charges being dismissed.
Authorities said Guzman walked into the police station on Sept. 26, 2020, left the building, then returned and began attacking the officer. He grabbed the officer’s gun and struck him with it several times, according to the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office.
Security video showed the officer being pistol-whipped in the head multiple times with the officer’s own gun after he went to meet with Guzman in the lobby of the station at 2175 John S Gibson Blvd.
LAPD Lt. Robin Aguirre told the judge that Guzman pointed the officer’s own weapon at him and pulled the trigger, saying that the gun did not fire and that he left the injured officer bleeding on the floor as she entered the lobby and ran after the defendant.
While Guzman was outside the station, shots were exchanged between the suspect and Aguirre, who told the judge that everything changed in an instant when she heard the officer yell “He’s got my gun.”
“And you shot at me,” she said, directly addressing the defendant in the Long Beach courtroom. “I hit the ground to avoid being killed. You fired again and again. As shots were being exchanged, I broadcast over the radio, `Officer needs help. Shots fired.’ Those are words no officer ever wants to say and no officer ever forgets hearing.”
No one was injured in the gunfire.
Aguirre noted that the defendant fled in his truck with the officer’s gun and that officers from across the city “responded to help us stop you.”
The officers included Officer Frank Partida, who she said suffered a serious injury to his hand during a struggle to take the defendant into custody, underwent multiple surgeries, was left weakened while recovering at home and contracted COVID-19, dying exactly a year after the attack.
She noted that “no sentence will ever undo the damage you caused” and said that “everyone affected by that night will carry these scars forever.”
Partida’s widow, Kristin, told the defendant that she hopes he will realize that his actions affected so many lives, and said she hoped that he will change his ways.
Then-LAPD Chief Michel Moore said in 2020, “I am grateful that the officer … who was working the desk (and) came out to assist this individual to understand what his needs were, that he survived and that during this engagement that he did not lose his life … He did not suffer the injury that apparently this suspect meant to inflict.”
Guzman — who has remained behind bars since his arrest — has undergone multiple mental competency proceedings in which he was found competent to stand trial.