Benjamin Burgos got the call in mid-October just before heading off to Vegas for his daughter’s birthday. His brother Nick Burgos, 38, had been shot by a Los Angeles County Sheriff Deputy at a UCLA hospital in Torrance and was in critical condition. The news didn’t reach the family until a week after Nick was shot. “We thought he was going to stay there for three weeks to get help, and then he was going to get released. But it didn’t happen like that,” Benjamin told L.A. Taco on November 15, while standing in the bright mid-afternoon sun outside of Jordon’s Tires on Vernon Avenue as tears balled up in his eye sockets but never hit his cheeks.
On October 7, the sheriff’s department released a statement alleging that deputies working security detail at Harbor-UCLA Medical were alerted to a “disruptive patient.” Benjamin found out from hospital staff that reached out to him weeks after Nick was shot to explain what happened from their perspective. The hospital staff told Benjamin that Nick left his room because he wanted to use the restroom. When Nick was denied bathroom access, he got “aggressive.” Benjamin told L.A. Taco that Nick’s medication impacted his mood and sometimes caused him to hallucinate. “He would act like a kid [when he took his medicine], would play with toys, and watch TV when the TV was off and would laugh at the TV, so when he didn’t take his medicine, he was actually more calm.”
Since he had an IV inserted in his arm, Nick was dragging an IV pole behind him as he attempted to use the bathroom. “I guess the cop felt threatened that he had a metal piping. The doctors around [the deputy] and the nurses were telling them, 'We have a protocol. You’re not allowed to shoot, don’t engage, our team is coming up here, like five minutes, we’re on the 4th floor they’re on the first floor.'” Benjamin told L.A. Taco that a female deputy shot Nick nine times. According to the sheriff’s department, Nick was hit seven times. He was the second person to be shot at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center in less than six years.
“A hospital is supposed to be your safe zone,” Benjamin said. According to him, Nick pleaded for help before admitting himself into the UCLA hospital, “He was like ‘you guys don’t understand what I’m going through, I need help I need to go to the hospital.’” Nick was at Harbor-UCLA Medical for several weeks before he was shot. “It’s not like they didn’t know who he was,” Benjamin said.
“My mom was like ‘No, I brought him in walking, I at least want to take him out in a wheelchair.’”