Los Angeles sheriff’s deputies chased a security guard while he was working Thursday evening after they say he “produced a handgun,” gunning him down before seizing all the cameras in the area.
Andres Guardado, 18, “ran because he was scared,” said the owner of the auto repair shop who recently had hired him but made no mention on whether Guardado was armed on the job.
Deputies say Guardado was not in uniform nor was he a licensed security guard. Deputies also said they recovered a gun “devoid of any identifying marks or serial numbers” and the gun “contained a loaded large-capacity prohibited magazine.”
But Guardado’s family are accusing the sheriff’s office of fabricating the part about the gun so there are still many unanswered questions to this shooting.
“It is not his gun,” Guardado’s sister told CBS Los Angeles. “Y’all framed him. Someone else did or y’all did.”
According to another CBS Los Angeles article:
“We had a security guard that was out front, because we had just had certain issues with people tagging and stuff like that,” Heney said. “And then the police came up, and they pulled their guns on him and he ran because he was scared, and they shot and killed him. He’s got a clean background and everything. There’s no reason.”
Deputies gave chase, and after a short foot pursuit, Guardado was shot by deputies in the upper torso, LASD said.
“Deputies observed the individual, at which point he observed the deputies,” an LASD spokesperson said Thursday night. “The individual then produced a handgun, and then began running southbound away from the deputies through businesses nearby. Deputies engaged in a short foot pursuit between the two businesses, at some point the deputies contacted the suspect and that’s when the deputy-involved shooting occurred.”
The family said LASD investigators removed security camera video along with some of the cameras from businesses in the area. Family members confronted deputies at the scene Thursday night and told reporters they did not believe Guardado was armed.
“I’d never heard or seen him have any kind of weapons,” Celina Avarca, Guardado’s cousin, said. “He never talked about them.”
A woman who witnessed part of the shooting and knew Guarado said she saw two deputies “come running up into the driveway” where Guardado was working before they gunned him down, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Georgena Laird, 37, said she was across the street outside her motor home when the shooting occurred. She heard the deputies’ car pull up across the street when she turned and saw two sheriff’s deputies “come running up into the driveway — at that point I didn’t see [Guardado] anymore at the gate.”
“I turned around and came rushing over” and saw two deputies in the driveway “pointing their weapons like this in an angle” at Guardado, Laird said, making a V shape with her hands.
She didn’t see the deputy fire his gun but heard a rapid succession of shots.
“When I heard the shots and I came over to see who got hit, he was already down on the ground,” she said. “This kid was such a sweetheart.”
Guardado’s family said the teen was working two jobs and was planning on becoming a nurse. He was also attending trade school to become an electrician or mechanic. A sign hung up at the scene of the shooting among many suggested he was shot in the back but that has not yet been confirmed.
“He was a good man,” Jennifer Guardado, the man’s sister, told CBS Los Angeles.
“He was gonna make it in life. He was gonna make it and become a good, professional man in life, but they took that away from my family and me.
The names of the deputies have not been released.
