On a late afternoon in early March, Hector Alaniz’s mother called 911 desperately pleading for help.
Her schizophrenic, autistic, and bipolar 23-year-old son was expressing suicidal ideations while he sat in a brown Chevy Malibu on the border of Filipinotown and Silver Lake.
A day earlier, Alaniz’s mother had called a county-run 1-800 mental health line asking for assistance, but they told her that they couldn’t do anything because her son was reportedly armed with a BB gun.
During the call with the 911 dispatcher the next day, Alaniz’s mother told the person on the other end of the call what happened when she called the 1-800 number and repeatedly stressed that her son had possession of the BB gun and had expressed that he wanted to hurt himself.
“What my son wants is for the police to come and kill him because he doesn’t want to live anymore,” she told the dispatcher.
When police arrived and attempted to make contact with Alaniz, he ran away from them, according to body camera footage released by the Los Angeles Police Department on Monday evening.
Within seconds of chasing Alaniz, an officer fired a “less-lethal” foam round at the 23-year-old, after Alaniz appeared to point the BB gun that has mother warned the dispatcher about, towards officers. Then, half a second later, LAPD Officer Anthony Valenzuela fired multiple shots at Alaniz.
“It’s a BB gun,” an officer said after the shooting.
“BB gun,” another officer reiterated.
“BB gun!” an officer yelled.
A bullet hit Alaniz in his right arm, but he continued to flee, according to police, resulting in a second discharge of a “less-lethal” foam round.
Moments later, as an officer approached Alaniz with a taser, his mother stood in between him and the officers pursuing her son.
“It’s a BB gun,” Alaniz told officers as they closed in on him.
“It’s my son. He’s my son,” Alaniz’s mother frantically told officers before Alaniz was shot with the taser.
“Oh no, it’s a BB gun. It’s a BB gun,” Alaniz’s mother yelled after her son hit the ground. “I told you, it’s a BB gun!”
Alaniz was subsequently handcuffed and transported to a local hospital, where he was reportedly treated for his injuries before being booked for assault with a deadly weapon on a police officer.
A black CO2 airsoft gun was recovered at the scene.
On the same day that he was arrested, the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office filed two counts of assault with a deadly weapon upon a peace officer (non-firearm) against Alaniz.
This is one of the more recent examples of Los Angeles police shooting someone during a mental health crisis.
Earlier this month, the Los Angeles Police Commission ruled that another LAPD officer was justified in using deadly force against a Korean American man who was having a mental health episode while holding a kitchen knife after the victim’s family called 911 for help.
A 2024 analysis of LAPD data since 2017 found that nearly a third of people shot at by police were struggling with some kind of mental illness.
