Bodycam footage captures first LAPD hostage killing in 13 years
Officers fired almost 20 times during confrontation with knife-wielding attacker
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Your support makes all the difference.The moment a hostage was accidentally shot dead alongside her captor by Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) officers was captured on video.
As the man, later identified as 32-year-old Guillermo Perez, held a knife to Elizabeth Tollison's throat, officers surrounded the pair outside a church which helps homeless people.
When he started to cut her they opened fire, shooting 18 shots. Both the man and his victim died at the scene.
It was the first time in 13 years Los Angeles police killed someone they consider an “innocent bystander or hostage”.
Police Chief Michel Moore said: “This is another case where officers were forced to make split-second decisions based on the actions of a violent individual."
In the bodycam footage of the 16 June incident released this week, Perez can be seen holding a large knife and a metal folding chair outside the Central Lutheran Church.
Police arrived at the scene after reports that a man had stabbed his ex-girlfriend. She was taken to the hospital with injuries which were not life-threatening.
“Drop the knife,” an officer repeatedly shouted at Perez, who ignored the command.
An officer fires several rounds from a bean bag shotgun — which fires a small bean bag with metal pellets — but Perez appears to use the folding chair to defend himself against them.
Perez then walks backwards and approaches a woman, who was standing nearby. He dropped the chair and put the knife to her throat.
Witnesses told police Perez moved the knife in a “sawing motion against her throat and cut her throat,” said Commander Alan Hamilton, who leads the unit which investigates police shootings.
Three of the officers then opened fire from their handguns, shooting 18 rounds total. Both Perez and Ms Tollison were killed.
Mr Moore told reporters that hostages’ lives are a priority and recruits are generally taught to use a “precise head shot.”
He said an investigation will look at whether the officers’ actions align with hostage training.
It was the first of two recent killings of hostages or bystanders as police tried to stop attackers.
The second came just five weeks later when police tried to stop an armed man from entering a Trader Joe’s store and fatally shot the supermarket’s assistant manager who was standing nearby.
An officer’s bullet killed Melyda Corado before a man took hostages inside the store on 21 July, authorities said last week.
Mr Moore had defended the officers’ use of deadly force as an attempt to stop what they feared could become a mass shooting.
On Tuesday, the police chief said he was concerned because the average number of rounds fired by officers during shootings had increased last year and the average number of officers involved in those shootings also increased.
The police department will implement a new training program and is exploring how to equip officers with other non-lethal weapons, he said.
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