The only recent news about the LAPD shooting involving Jose Pena is the fact that the officer who fired the bullet that killed the little girl will probably never be known:
The probe into the officer-involved shooting that left a gunman and his young daughter dead will be comprehensive, but it likely will not establish which officer killed the child, the police chief said Tuesday.
William Bratton told the Los Angeles Police Commission the investigation of the July 10 confrontation between police and Jose Raul Pena involves reviewing video from nine cameras and police radio broadcasts, along with interviews of 40 police officers and 35 civilian witnesses.
Reconstructing the standoff and gun battle — which went on for more than two hours — is like “filling in all the pieces” of a big jigsaw puzzle, the chief said.
Authorities said the gunman held 19-month-old Suzie Marie Pena in his arms as he fired at police and bystanders. Pena wounded a SWAT officer before he was shot dead.
Bratton said the probe is “unlikely to determine which officer fired the shot that took her life.” He said the toddler died of a rifle shot, and four officers in the building were carrying rifles.
He also said investigators probably would not be able to establish exactly when the child was killed, but added investigators believe her death occurred during the “last fusillade of shots” in the office of Pena’s auto sales business.
The reason why they will not be able to determine who fired the shot is because the bullet passed through the body:
Police Inspector General Andre Birotte, in an interview, said investigators have determined the toddler was in her father’s arms during the final confrontation, although they do not know whether she was dead or alive.
It will be difficult to match the fatal round to any one of the officers’ guns, Birotte said, because the bullet passed through Suzie’s body and might never be recovered, or it could have been mangled on impact.
There may not be a distinct trajectory for the fatal shot because the officers were firing in close proximity, using the same ammunition, Bratton said.
“The wounds she received were caused by a rifle round,” Bratton told the Police Commission. “At least four of the officers were carrying that [type of] weapon. It is unlikely that we will be able to determine which officer actually fired the round to take her life.”
Probably the best quote came from Commissioner Rick Caruso:
Bratton said authorities will probably never be able to identify which officer fired the bullet that killed Suzie because several officers fired the same type of weapon.
Commissioner Rick Caruso said he is glad because pinning down who fired the fatal shot would further traumatize the officers, whom he spoke with over the weekend.
“Every one of those officers, their words to me were, ‘Commissioner, I would give my life to get that child back,”‘ Caruso said.
I feel for them. I couldn’t imagine being in the situation. Once engaged in combat training takes over. The enemy is actively firing at you to kill you, or other’s, so you engage him to kill him and stop the attack. Should they have fired? Your goddamn right they should of fired, no way in hell anyone is going to tell me that with a man firing 40 rounds in your direction in close quarters that you would not fire back. The only one’s who will say that are those not in reality, those monday morning quarterbacks who watch too many movies and believe them to be real. The one’s who have no inkling of what combat is.
I recently saw a post at a blog where he believed soldiers would never had engaged. Unbelievable. Does he not realize that innocent civilians have been caught in the crossfire and killed in Iraq. While tragic I would never second guess these soldiers because I have been both a solder and a cop. People who see reality in such unrealistic terms need to come back down to earth and turn the tv off.
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Al “Race Baiter” Sharpton
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