The California attorney general’s office on Monday said it has filed manslaughter and assault charges against a former Los Angeles police officer who is accused of fatally shooting a mentally disabled man during an off-duty altercation at a Costco store in 2019.
Salvador Sanchez, 32, a seven-year veteran of the LAPD at the time of the June 2019 shooting, was arrested Monday morning in Riverside County. His bail was set at $155,000, according to jail records.
Sanchez is accused of killing 32-year-old Kenneth French and wounding his elderly parents during a brief confrontation inside the Costco store in Corona, about 50 miles southeast of Los Angeles.
COSTCO SHOOTING: OFF-DUTY LA OFFICER WON’T FACE CHARGES
Off-duty Los Angeles Police Officer Salvador Sanchez and Kenneth French can be seen struggling before the shooting. (LAPD)
Sanchez was shopping at the store with his family and holding his 1 1/2-year-old son when he was struck from behind by French. Sanchez was knocked to the ground, and he opened fire, fatally wounding French and critically injuring his parents, Russell, 58, and Paola French, 59, police say.
Sanchez shot French four times in the back and shoulder, his mother once in the stomach, and his father once in the back, Corona Police Chief George Johnstone said.
“Where there’s reason to believe a crime has been committed, we will seek justice,” said Attorney General Rob Bonta. “That’s exactly what these charges are about: pursuing justice after an independent and thorough review of the evidence and the law. Ultimately, any loss of life is a tragedy and being licensed to carry a gun doesn’t mean you’re not accountable for how you use it. No matter who you are, nobody is above the law.”
Sanchez said he believed he had been shot when he was struck by French, who lived with his parents and had the mental capabilities of a teenager, the Los Angeles Times reported. French had been taken off his medication for mental health illness due to other health complications, which may have caused him to lash out, said Dale Galipo, the French family attorney.
The charges filed by Bonta came after the Riverside County district attorney declined to charge Sanchez criminally. A grand jury did not bring an indictment in September 2019.
The encounter in the Corona store spanned just 3.8 seconds. The grand jury was presented with a poor-quality clip of surveillance video and testimony from several witnesses, some of whom had been subpoenaed.
CALIFORNIA COSTCO SHOOTING SURVEILLANCE VIDEO SHOWS SHOPPERS ERUPTING IN PANIC
Kenneth French and his mother, Paola French. (Louana D’Cunha via AP, File) (AP)
“I believe that he believed at that moment that he was shot,” Riverside County District Attorney Michael Hestrin had said at a news conference in 2019 when making the announcement that there would be no charges.
“He told witnesses around very quickly after that he was shot and he was reaching back numerous times looking for blood on the back of his head,” Hestrin added. “So that’s the evidence. That’s the evidence that the grand jury heard. And that’s from numerous witnesses around the incident. Yes. The officer, after being struck, thought he had been shot and believed there was an active shooter in front of him.”
On Monday, David Winslow, Sanchez’s attorney, called his client’s arrest a “political stunt that does absolutely nothing to protect the public.”
“The arrest of Sal Sanchez is a product of the politically motivated program by the California Attorney General to prosecute police officers,” Winslow said in a statement. “Sal was not acting as a police officer when he was attacked. He was off duty acting as a father in self-defense and protecting his child.”
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Sanchez faces one count of voluntary manslaughter and two counts of assault with a semiautomatic firearm. The LAPD said he was terminated from the agency in July 2020, but it declined further comment on Sanchez’s arrest.
GLASSELL PARK, LOS ANGELES (KABC) — The man who was killed inside a Rite-Aid in Glassell Park late Thursday was a store employee who was shot by a shoplifter that he was confronting, according to friends and officials.
Friends and family held an emotional vigil Friday for Miguel Penaloza, describing him as a caring man who helped his coworkers out and was working to support his parents. He was also planning to leave the job soon and had already given his notice.
The shooting happened just before 9 p.m. Thursday inside the store in the 4000 block of Eagle Rock Boulevard. Police searched the area for the suspects, but no arrests were made.
The victim died at the scene, officials said.
Man shot, killed inside Rite Aid store, 2 suspects on the loose
Dozens of coworkers, friends and family members gathered to remember the dedicated store worker, with many bringing candles and flowers.
“Very loving. He always had a smile on his face,” said coworker Lesly Garcia. “He always talked about his family, his parents. He lived with his parents and took care of his parents. He worked two jobs to support his parents.”
A friend and former coworker said he did not feel safe while working at the store.
“I was the closing supervisor and we always had people coming in — stealing liquor and beer, beer runs and, unfortunately, at times there was only two of us,” said David Cruz.
He and others say security is an issue at the store and they hope something can be done to prevent more tragedies.
A major explosion in South Los Angeles damaged buildings and injured at least nine people, including police officers, as a bomb squad was in the process of seizing more than 5,000 pounds of illegal fireworks in the area.
The blast damaged cars in a residential neighborhood and left debris on the streets, footage on social media showed. A truck that was apparently being used to collect the fireworks was also severely damaged, video showed.
The Los Angeles Police Department said on Twitter that at the time of the explosion, its bomb squad officers had been handling thousands of pounds of fireworks in the area of 27th Street and San Pedro Street.
Some of the fireworks seized at the South L.A. home were deemed unstable and and placed inside a bomb squad truck. The truck exploded this evening.
(Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times)
“Some of the fireworks were being stored in our Bomb Squad trailer as a precautionary measure. Unknown at this time what caused an explosion,” the tweet said.
Capt. Stacy Spell, an LAPD spokesman, said that the department’s first priorities were “evacuation and rendering the area safe.” Spell said LAPD officers were among the injured, but he did not yet know the extent of their injuries.
Los Angeles Fire Department spokesperson Margaret Stewart said she could not comment yet on the condition of those who were injured but said that she expected the number of injured to increase as officials canvass the area.
“We continue to encounter more patients,” she said.
About noon, the department received an anonymous call about the fireworks on the 700 block of East 27th Street, Officer Tony Im said.
Officers found several thousand pounds of fireworks and other improvised explosive devices, Im said. The fireworks were to be put in storage, and officials had planned to explode the improvised devices at the scene because they were too unstable to move.
KTTV-TV Channel 11 reported that a bomb squad truck carrying the devices had exploded unexpectedly.
But it was unclear what caused the blast nor exactly what kind of explosive ignited.
Quavo and Saweetie could soon be answering to the LAPD, because cops have opened an investigation into their elevator altercation … TMZ has learned.
Law enforcement sources tell us LAPD detectives have seen the video, obtained by TMZ, showing the now ex-couple fighting over a video game console box, and cops want to meet with both parties, separately, to discuss what went down.
Our sources say the situation could be considered an instance of domestic violence, where both parties are in the wrong. Cops want to determine what happened before and after the elevator surveillance footage was captured.
TMZ.com
TMZ broke the story, the video — recorded last year — opens with a shot of Saweetie seemingly taking a swipe at Quavo. They continue to struggle over the orange gaming case, and then Quavo grabs Saweetie by the arm and drags her into the elevator, hitting the back wall and both collapse on the ground.
Quavo gets up, but Saweetie remains on the floor through the rest of their elevator ride. When it comes to a stop and she gets up and limps out. It doesn’t appear they exchanged any words while on the elevator.
As for the possible criminal case, we’re told once cops wrap their investigation, they’ll likely turn it over to the City Attorney to review for possible changes.
Neither Quavo nor Saweetie has spoken out since we posted the video.
Los Angeles Times reporter James Queally was briefly detained by the Los Angeles Police Department as he was covering a protest in Echo Park on Thursday evening.
Queally was reporting on the protest for The Times when he was detained. Protesters were also detained by police, who had issued a dispersal order for the area.
After inquiries by Times editors and its attorney, Queally was released. It was not immediately clear why he was detained, but police had issued a statement a short time earlier saying reporters were subject to dispersal orders in the area.
Times Managing Editor Kimi Yoshino said the paper was outraged that Queally was detained simply for doing his job. The Times immediately protested to authorities and he was released without charges.
In an interview shortly after his release, which occurred around 9:15 p.m., Queally said he was wearing an LAPD-issued press badge on a lanyard around his neck when he was grabbed by two officers and placed in zip ties despite immediately and repeatedly telling them that he was a working Times reporter.
“I was pretty calm, and they weren’t violent or anything, but I was like, ‘Check the credentials, L.A. Times.’ No answer. ‘Check the credentials, L.A. Times.’ No answer.”
Eventually the two officers detaining him called over a sergeant, and Queally again said that he was a working reporter. The sergeant told him that it didn’t matter, Queally said.
“He was less than interested with the fact that I was press,” Queally said. “I said, ‘Are you sure you want to do this? We really doing this?’ And he said, ‘Yes, this is the policy tonight.’”
Queally had been covering demonstrations in the area, where authorities were clearing a homeless encampment, since about 5 p.m., he said. Hours later, after demonstrators were flashing lights in officers’ faces, the LAPD declared the gathering unlawful.
Queally said he at one point heard an officer on a speakerphone say something about a media area, but he could not make out the details.
“I didn’t know what they were directing people to do, so I kind of stayed in the crowd,” Queally said. He said he moved farther off to the side, away from the skirmish line, to make his status as an observer clearer, but that “that did not appear to work, obviously.”
After an officer announced that those in the crowd were no longer free to leave, about 20 cops came out of an alleyway and helped surround the crowd from all angles, kettling them, Queally said.
Queally said he was standing with Lexis-Olivier Ray, a reporter with L.A. Taco whom Queally had written a story about earlier this month. The story covered how Ray had been charged with failing to disperse during a gathering he was covering after the Dodger’s World Series victory. Ray was the only person among hundreds in the streets that night to face such a charge.
Now, Queally realized, he was facing a similar fate.
“I wrote a story last week about the problems with the LAPD being overly aggressive with a member of the press that made them look bad. I was standing next to the same person, discussing with him again how this could be a problem again. And then it happened,” Queally said. “That’s a little maddening.”
On Thursday, Ray tweeted video of Queally being arrested, alerting other Times reporters and editors.
Queally said he was about to be placed on a transport bus with other detainees when additional LAPD officials came and released him, telling him to go to a designated media area — with one official suggesting Queally should have been there all along.
“They were questioning why I wasn’t covering the protest from the media pen,” Queally said, “which would have been … impossible by the rules of space and time.”
Kate Cagle, an anchor and reporter with Spectrum News, also was detained in zip ties and later released. She tweeted video of her being walked off by officers.
Before Queally’s release, Capt. Stacy Spell, an LAPD spokesman, had said that if Queally — an award-winning courts reporter for The Times — hadn’t done “anything out of character” during the protest, then he would likely get “a dust-off” and be released.
“I wouldn’t expect James would do anything out of character, but we have to make sure that that wasn’t the case,” Spell said.
Matt Pearce, president of The Times’ employees’ union, had demanded Queally’s immediate release.
“Journalism is not a crime, @LAPDHQ,” Pearce said in a statement on social media. “Stop making excuses for arresting our journalists. You know who they are, and you know they’re there on behalf of the public.”
Authorities on Wednesday night moved to close down a homeless encampment in Echo Park that has become a highly charged test of city leaders’ struggle to balance constituents’ demands for clean streets and public spaces with the ever-growing tragedy of people who have no homes.
Scores of police moved into the area, where they were met by more than 200 protesters who oppose the sweep. The Los Angeles Police Department repeatedly told protesters to leave but most initially refused.
Park rangers, flanked by LAPD officers, began taping notices of closure onto trees and light poles on the east side of the park, where homeless people have been camping throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. The signs said the park closes Thursday and gave notice that all personal property must be removed from the park, “including, but not limited to, tents, chairs, tables, backpacks, bags, and personal items…”
City contractors protected by LAPD officers unloaded fence from flatbed trucks. Flood lights helped guide their work as they pounded the panels of fence into the ground. Once it was up, the workers unfurled green fabric and hung it along the fence.
Los Angeles Police Chief Michel Moore said homeless residents inside the park will be allowed to stay there overnight but that no one else can enter. The encampment residents must leave within 24 hours, he added.
Some protesters saw that statement as a victory. “We won the night,” one organizer shouted.
“I live here and I consider tonight a victory,” added one resident of the camp.
Police and protesters at Echo Park Lake on Wednesday night.
(James Queally / Los Angeles Times)
Police just before 10:30 gave a dispersal order to the crowd through a loudspeaker from a white truck, officially declaring an “unlawful assembly.”
There were some clashes, with police seen shoving some protesters and some bottles and other objects thrown at officers. Police tried to push protesters back from the park but they refused to move.
At one point, a line of police officers in riot gear moved slowly along Glendale Boulevard at the edge of the lake, telling protesters to “Clear the area!”
The protesters, a mix of homeless people and activists who have taken up their cause, refused to budge, and chanted back: “Whose park? Our park!”
The crowd then began chanting, “Why are you in riot gear? I don’t see no riot here!”
Some residents of the encampment were saying they would not leave. But others decided it was time to go.
Edward Juarez dismantled a tent on the east side of the park as dozens of officers massed across the street. Park rangers, accompanied by police, taped signs to trees that said Juarez and others who lived in the park had to clear out by 10:30 pm Thursday.
Juarez, who has lived in the park since August, said the tent belonged to a friend who’d been placed last week at a hotel in downtown Los Angeles. Juarez, a professional photographer who said he lost his livelihood when the pandemic shut down concerts and other nightlife events he worked, said he planned to stay the night somewhere else, maybe on Alvarado Street or at a friend’s house.
“I just want to get out of here, it’s getting crazy,” he said, nodding toward the officers wearing helmets and carrying batons across the street.
Juarez said police officers came to the park last week and said the city planned to clear the park, although they didn’t tell him when the sweep would happen.
“It’s what it is,” he said. “What else are you going to do?”
Los Angeles City Councilman Mitch O’Farrell said the LAPD “was asked to support community safety efforts during installation of the fencing to assist in the rehabilitation of Echo Park. Department personnel are deployed in that area so that those efforts can begin in a safe and unimpeded manner.”
He added that homeless services providers would be back in the park Thursday to “work with the park’s unhoused residents to offer shelter and services to anyone who wants and needs the assistance.”
The SELAH Neighborhood Homeless Coalition late Wednesday demanded the closure be postponed so residents “have the necessary time to meaningfully connect with service providers who are working tirelessly to serve them.”
As protests erupted on the west side of the park, senior officials with the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority moved through the parks dimly lit and dead quiet eastern part. They sought out the 30-50 homeless people they estimate remain here.
They found one couple who jumped at the opportunity to go to a dowtown hotel and quickly called them a Lyft.
LAHSA executive director Heidi Marston said to one of her colleagues as they waited for them to depart.
Marston was angry with how the park’s closure had been rolled out and communicated to homeless people. They need time and ample warning before something like this could take place, she said.
“It’s about setting expectations, being clear And giving them options,” Marston said. That wasn’t possible here she said. The couple they got to a hotel were the only people who wanted to go tonight. She hoped more would go Thursday.
“If you’re gonna close the park be clear. It doesn’t mean we need take people by surprise,” she said.“It Facilitates fear, chaos and it breaks the trust we built. It seems like it didn’t need to happen this way.”
The Los Angeles Police Department issued a statement urging calm and cooperation as the installation of fencing in support of the Echo Park rehabilitation effort continues. Unfortunately officers have received projectiles and refusals from individuals blocking streets in the area.”
The department also denied claims from some that officers used tear gas. “There is NO tear gas being used,” the department said on Twitter.
While other large homeless encampments have been shut down with less fanfare, the future of the one at Echo Park is emerging as a flashpoint in the city’s struggle with homelessness.
Unlike in some previous sweeps, when the city has temporarily displaced homeless people to clean up an area, it is trying to move people from Echo Park permanently. To do that humanely, it is offering shelter through Project Roomkey, a state program that has reserved thousands of hotel rooms for homeless people.
Some residents of the camp have agreed to go. But others are vowing to stay and resist eviction. They argue that the park, nestled in a small canyon with a breathtaking view of the downtown skyline, has been elevated by the homeless residents and their allies as a place of beauty that gives those living there the dignity and safety they could not find on sidewalks and under freeways.
Park residents and their advocates, who held a protest Wednesday morning, argue that they have turned the encampment into a model, with a pantry, a garden and some effort among residents to coordinate cleaning.
“This park could have easily been MacArthur [Park] or skid row, but it wasn’t. It wasn’t. That was because of us — not you,” one longtime resident, Ayman Ahmed, told O’Farrell. The 20-something Ahmed has become an unofficial spokesman for the encampment.
But the camp has drawn the ire of neighbors. And some city leaders argue they are not simply pushing people out but are offering them better accommodations.
“You define a sweep as moving someone indoors to a safe, clean environment where they will be provided free, healthy meals, receive medical care and a path to wellness, then you can call it what you want,” O’Farrell said later in the day. “Because this is what we are doing for everyone who has been there over the last several weeks or months.”
As the encampment grew last year to nearly 200 tents and covered nearly half the park, many residents of the surrounding hillsides demanded that O’Farrell do something about an intrusion of trash, drug use and crime in their neighborhood, which he represents.
A sign sits among tents for homeless people during a rally in Echo Park on Wednesday.
(Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)
O’Farrell has long said he would close the park and repair any damage, but he resisted requests to publicly commit to a timetable.
While outreach workers have been telling people in the park for weeks that they would eventually have to leave, the decision to act this week remained a tight secret until it leaked through unidentified sources to The Times and activists supporting the homeless encampments. The activists said O’Farrell hoped to keep the date quiet to avoid a backlash and that he obtained an opinion from City Attorney Mike Feuer that only 24 hours’ notice would be required to enforce the 10:30 p.m. park curfew.
Feuer’s office said it provided advice but would not say what the advice was.
The campers and their advocates began a vigil Wednesday, anticipating that police would arrive at night or early in the morning to begin ticketing.
For the second consecutive day, volunteers from groups like Streetwatch and workers from nonprofits such as Urban Alchemy and PATH circulated in the park, recruiting campers to get on shuttle buses making the short trip downtown to three hotels at undisclosed locations.
Somewhat complicating matters on Wednesday, outreach workers from the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority were not allowed to enter the park.
“It’s for the safety of our teams. We’re worried about the protests,” said an LAHSA spokesman, Christopher Lee.
A man speaks outside the office of L.A. City Councilman Mitch O’Farrell on Wednesday, where protesters held a rally to stop the removal of homeless people from Echo Park.
(Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)
Leaders among those who declined the shelter said they expected from 20 to 50 people to defend what they believe is their right to live in the public park.
As tension over the expected sweep built during the week, Mayor Eric Garcetti took a back seat to the councilman from his former district, issuing a statement Tuesday that he was working with O’Farrell to ensure all people in the park are offered appropriate housing or shelter and are “given the opportunity to claim or store their property.”
More than 150 homeless people and activists massed in the park by 7 a.m. Wednesday to castigate the planned closure. Homeless people have been camping in the park since late 2019, but their numbers have grown substantially during the pandemic.
Since news of the park closure broke, O’Farrell’s office has been flooded with angry calls and emails. In the park, encampment residents mingled with the community and decried the city’s response to homelessness writ large.
The group marched to O’Farrell’s district office on Sunset Boulevard, a block away, where Ahmed argued that since parks are on public land, they should be used for the public good. He criticized the secrecy that accompanied the planned closure and informed people they’d be staying the night.
“Whoever can be here, please sleep over,” he said. “We need to tell Mitch this has got to stop.”
Once the speakers were finished, the group marched back to the park and planned to paper it with signs as they waited for the authorities to arrive.
The city is offering to move people from the encampment to hotel rooms it is renting temporarily under a state program, Project Roomkey. Ahmed spoke of it in dark terms, claiming without evidence that it was lining the pockets of elected officials and wasn’t helping people who need it the most. He said the closure of the park would only add to the problems of the people who have been staying there.
Ahmad Chapman, a spokesman for the homeless services agency, said that on Monday and Tuesday, outreach workers from the organization moved 44 people from the lake into hotels.
Throughout the morning Wednesday, buses ferried people to a downtown hotel, ultimately taking another 15 to 20 former park residents.
Homeless services workers have quietly expressed frustration about the speed and secrecy of the cleanup and closure plan. They have said it makes it harder to help their clients.
Several people phoned into a City Council meeting Wednesday to rail against the closure plan, including protesters dialing in from the Echo Park demonstration.
“Mitch, if you continue down this path, to sweep and displace unhoused residents of Echo Park Lake, there’s going to be an escalation that you are not prepared for,” warned Ricci Sergienko of the activist group People’s City Council, which has repeatedly staged protests outside the homes of council members.
Ahmed urged O’Farrell to work with the residents, arguing that they had worked to throw away trash and clean the area.
At the end of the meeting, O’Farrell complained that there had been “a concentrated and coordinated effort” to spread disinformation and disrupt efforts to get people into housing. The councilman said there had been months of effort to build relationships with people living in the park and get them into housing, ahead of “the temporary and necessary closure of the park facility so crews can begin extensive repairs.”
He denounced the idea that the encampment was somehow utopian or “commune-like,” citing a phrase in one Times article. “The park has, in fact, devolved into a dangerous, chaotic environment for all users,” O’Farrell said, noting that there had been four deaths there.
Some of those at the park welcomed the prospect of a hotel room.
Slumped on the sidewalk on a street just north of the park, Clifford French, who had been staying in the park for four months, said he was excited to get a room. After arriving from Nevada and riding the buses and walking the streets for a week, he came to the lake after a friend told him it was a safe place to stay.
The 41-year-old said homelessness quickly becomes about surviving rather than thriving. The simple acts of keeping clean and staying fed consumed his time. French looked forward to a bed and being able to take a shower. He hoped the stability might give him the chance to look for a job or sign up for benefits. But still he wondered about the people who weren’t lucky enough to get a room.
“The park was a nice place to stay. I loved the sun, the fountain and the people,” he said. “It’s hard to know where these people will go.”
Times staff writer Emily Alpert Reyes, Dakota Smith and Richard Winton contributed to this report.
LOS ANGELES (AP) — A report that Los Angeles police officers circulated a photo of George Floyd with the words “you take my breath away” in a Valentine-like format has prompted an internal investigation and drawn blistering condemnation from Floyd’s family, the district attorney and the police union.
Los Angeles Police Chief Michel Moore said Saturday that investigators will try to determine how the image may have come into the workplace and who may have been involved, the Los Angeles Times reported. Moore said the officer who made the complaint would be interviewed Monday.
“Our investigation is to determine the accuracy of the allegations while also reinforcing our zero tolerance for anything with racist views,” Moore said.
Floyd, a Black man, died last May after a Minneapolis police officer pressed a knee on his neck as Floyd repeatedly said, “I can’t breathe.” His death launched massive protests nationwide over racial injustice and police brutality.
Ben Crump, an attorney for Floyd’s family, said Monday that the family is outraged.
“This is beyond insult on top of injury — it’s injury on top of death. The type of callousness and cruelty within a person’s soul needed to do something like this evades comprehension — and is indicative of a much larger problem within the culture of the LAPD,” Crump said.
“We demand that everyone who was involved is held accountable for their revolting behavior and that an apology be issued to the family immediately.”
Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascon condemned the image, saying he would investigate the matter to see if any of his cases “may have been compromised by biased police work.”
The board of directors for the Los Angeles Police Protective League said in a statement that the union “repudiates this abhorrent image” and that any officer who “feels the need to be part of any online group that engages in, promotes, and/or celebrates this type of activity should quickly rethink their career choice because they clearly don’t have the judgment, nor temperament, to be a member of law enforcement.”
If the internal investigation confirms LAPD officers circulated the image, “people will find my wrath,” the police chief said.
The Times reported that Moore also confirmed the department is investigating two anonymous Instagram accounts reportedly linked to department personnel — including one called the “Blue Line Mafia.”
LOS ANGELES–Michel Moore, the chief of the Los Angeles Police Department, announced Saturday an internal investigation following a report that a photo of George Floyd had been circulating among officers with a caption that read, “You take my breath away,” a report said.
The Los Angeles Times reported that the photo had a “Valentine-like format.” He told the paper that there is zero tolerance “for anything with racist views.”
The officer who alerted the department about the alleged photo is set to be interviewed on Monday. Moore said if the photo is confirmed “people will find my wrath.”
Floyd, a Black man in handcuffs, died May 25, 2020, after former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, who is white, pressed his knee against his neck for several minutes even after he said he couldn’t breathe.
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Floyd’s death sparked protests in Minneapolis and beyond, and led to a nationwide reckoning on race. All four officers were fired. They are scheduled to stand trial in March.
