[dropcap size=big]A[/dropcap] Los Angeles police officer shot and killed a man armed with a knife during the morning hours of February 14 – Valentine’s Day – at the heavily trafficked 7th Street/Metro Center station in downtown L.A., Los Angeles police said.
It was one of two separate officer involved shootings that took place that day, LAPD Chief Michael Moore said during the weekly L.A. Police Commission meeting of February 19.
The other incident took place around 3:25 in the morning in the area of 6th Street and San Julian Street in Skid Row, involving an off-duty plainclothes detective. Why an off-duty detective was in Skid Row at the wee hours of the morning and how the incident occurred are still being investigated, Moore said.
In that incident, the detective was attacked near the rear entrance of the Midnight Mission, according to a report from the L.A. Times. The area behind the mission usually crowded with people and the street there lined with homeless encampments. The detective had been drinking in the hours before he was attacked.
The man killed in the metro station was identified by Chief Moore as Wilfredo Hernandez. He was approached by fare inspectors at the station entrance by the Blue Line platform. Hernandez allegedly lunged at a Metro security guard. That was when foot beat LAPD officers intervened.
“Uniformed officers assigned to transit services were working a foot beat in the mezzanine level of the 7th Street and Figueroa Street transit station in Metro Center when they observed security personnel engaged in an altercation with an individual armed with a knife,” Moore said at the police commission meeting.
The department said on Twitter that no police officers were injured when the man was killed at Metro Center.
UPDATE: At approx 6:55 a.m. LAPD officers were advised by MTA security officers of a male Hispanic with a knife on the upper platform at the 7th/Metro Center train station. Officers responded and attempted to de-escalate the situation with suspect who was armed with the knife.
— LAPD HQ (@LAPDHQ) February 14, 2019
“The officers utilized a Taser with that individual armed with a knife which proved ineffective and the incident escalated, resulting in an Officer Involved Shooting. Los Angeles Fire Department personnel responded and declared the individual deceased at the scene.”
The officers were not wearing body cams. “There is no body worn video on this one, because the officers that worked the MTA — they don’t wear any body-worn video camera on them,” said LAPD spokesman Officer Sal Ramirez.
The circumstances that led to the confrontation at the Metro station are under investigation. An autopsy was performed on Feb. 16 and it was determined the decedent died from multiple gunshot wounds and the death was certified as a homicide, according to the L.A. County Medical Examiner-Coroner.
RELATED: Video: Man Killed While Shopping for Valentine's Day in South L.A. ~ Nash Baker Reports
