LA cops murder another kid

This time, Andres Guardado, 18, RIP.

From Jacob Crosse, 22 June 2020, wsws.org, part of a much longer column:

“In Los Angeles, a rally for the recently murdered Andres Guardado exceeded expectations with thousands participating Sunday afternoon. The march began at 1 p.m. with roughly 100 people, but by the time the march reached the front of the Los Angeles County Compton Sheriff’s (LASD) office, which was surrounded by riot police, the crowd had swelled into the thousands.

It has been over 72 hours since police gunned down the 18-year-old Guardado, who was working as a security guard at the Freeway auto body shop located on the 400 block of Redondo Beach Blvd. According to Captain Kent Wegener of the LASD, deputies were “observing Guardado,” who allegedly spotted the deputies looking at him. Upon seeing the police, Guardado supposedly “produced a gun” before running away from the police. Wegener stated that after a short foot-pursuit an as-yet unnamed deputy “fired six shots” into Guardado, killing him. No deputies were injured.

Police have stated they recovered a gun at the scene that had an illegal large capacity magazine and was devoid of any serial numbers of identifying marks. No video footage or pictures have been produced to corroborate the police allegations. The police have yet to state why they were “observing” Guardado to begin with, as there had been no calls placed for police assistance at that address.

Andrew Henney, the owner of the body shop, described Guardado as “a good friend” and disputed the police retelling of events. In a video interview with Memo Torres of LA Taco, Henney states that Guardado, “was standing near the curb … talking to two girls and then the police approached him and right away drew their guns, pointing them at him, and he got scared and he ran.

Gesturing down the alley, Henney states he saw Guardado, “on his knees with his hands behind his head, that’s when the cops shot him.” In a separate interview with CBS KCAL Henney noted that Guardado had “a clean background and everything. There’s no reason.”

Henney also questioned police reports that Guardado was armed, “I don’t think so, I never knew him to be armed, he wasn’t a gang member, he had never been so much as arrested, he was the coolest kid.”

Notably, which has gone unreported in mainstream versions of the events, Henney states that investigators Thursday night locked down his store and proceeded to break and confiscate several security cameras Henney had installed at the shop. Police also took his DVR, all before obtaining a warrant, which Henney noted police produced several hours later.

Guardado’s cousin, Celina Avarca, in an interview with CBS, also disputed police accounts of Guardado being armed:“I’d never heard or seen him have any kind of weapons,” Avarca said. “He never talked about them.” Avarca also said her cousin was working two jobs and was in the process of applying to school to become a nurse.

Jennifer Guardado, the slain man’s older sister, also speaking to CBS, noted the bright future the family saw for Andres, “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.

“My parents are completely destroyed. We’re all dead already inside.”

“I lost a part of me, it’s empty, and I’m never gonna have him back,” his sister added. “I’m never gonna see him, he’s never gonna talk to me, I’m just, I can’t, I just can’t believe this happened to my brother. It really hurts me.”

In an interview with author Julissa Natzely Arce Raya, Guardado’s father, Cristobal, who works in the restaurant industry, noted that his son recently started the job to help his father pay for the bills: “He told me he wanted to help me. But this didn’t help me. He just came to meet his death.”

“He had just graduated high school. He didn’t deserve this. El era un buen hijo.” (He was a good son.)

Guardado was the second man shot to death by LA County sheriffs in a 48-hour period. Terron Jammal Boone, half-brother to Robert Fuller, who was found dead hanging from a tree last week in Southern California, was shot multiple times by deputies after an alleged traffic stop turned violent last Wednesday.

As was the case with Guardado, none of the detectives, deputies, or police cruisers were equipped with cameras.”

Jacob Cross is right; after reading his column I’d stuck ‘Andres Guardado’ into a Bing search engine, and found how much distortion, obfuscation, and I might add: ‘lying smears’ was in MSM coverage.

It was a bit the same with video coverage of his murder, but most videos were all about the protestors lobbing stuff at the police who’d responded with teargas, etc..

This is the best I’d found yesterday:  (4:05)

“…and that’s when the deputy-involved shooting occurred.”


(cross-posted from Café Babylon)

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Not sure what a security hold is except the autopsy will be not be immediate and can be delayed for a long time. Off hand sounds like the Sheriff's office is being silent on details to give themselves time to put together a narrative and story how they were justified in shooting the young man.

LA County Sheriff’s Department places autopsy of Andres Guardado on ‘security hold’ after he was shot by deputy

Edit: I went to youtube to find any videos about the protest march. All the results were major news outlets. None showed the deputies shooting bullets into the crowd. Just video with no context. I think the major media outlets have been taught by the cops shooting at them to not film them.

Edit2: A news clip showed sheriff press conference at which spokesman said they gun they found had a SW slide/upper and a glock magazine in the lower. I have never heard of such a thing being possible. SW built a near copy of the Glock 17 and was sued by Glock. Glock won but the magazines from what I remember were never compatible even in the original SW clone. More strangeness.

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longtalldrink's picture

@MrWebster "Off hand sounds like the Sheriff's office is being silent on details to give themselves time to put together a narrative and story how they were justified in shooting the young man."

How they all double down (even after WEEKS of protests) to the business of CYAing. Sounds like the "authorities" are afraid. Hmmm wonder what they are afraid of? Surely not the poor and powerless. Sounds like they are afraid of the vigilantes and the powerful police unions.

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Well done is better than well said-Ben Franklin

wendy davis's picture

@longtalldrink

exactly that!

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@MrWebster

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@aliasalias No wonder the major outlets did not show the sheriff's shooting.

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wendy davis's picture

@MrWebster

i just grabbed the same link and spent far too long trying to find the cnn video on youtube.

i'd clipped these paragraphs:

‘LA County Sheriff’s Department places autopsy of Andres Guardado on ‘security hold’ after he was shot by deputy’, mercurynews.com, today

The autopsy for a man shot and killed by a Los Angeles County Sheriff’s deputy last week has been placed on a “security hold” by the department, according to a statement from the coroner’s office.
News of the hold came the same day the city of Compton issued a statement demanding answers over the death of 18-year-old Andres Guardado.

Autopsy on ‘security hold’

“Since LASD placed a security hold on the case, the report and the cause of death cannot be released to the public,” Sarah Ardalani, the Public Information Officer for the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner’s office, told CNN on Monday.
Guardado’s body was scheduled to be examined Monday but with the hold, it could be some time before the results are released to the public.

The hold could last for “months to years, depending on the investigation and the agency,” according to Ardalani.

That doesn’t bode well for the city and community that want to know what happened.
“The only acceptable reaction to the murder of Andres Guardado is immediate action by all responsible parties. People are hurting and they are tired of excuses,” the city of Compton said. “I strongly urge the LA County Sheriff’s Department to address this incident immediately and provide answers for the family and our community.”

After the hold was announced, the city of Santa Ana set a curfew Monday night for 10 p.m. due to “possible civil unrest resulting from protests,” according to the city.

what did you make out from the sheriff? did he say that les cochons claim they were at the auto zone store for a real reason, and they'd described the illegal unmarked cobbled-together gun he'd had on him? (sorry, i just can't learn from videos very well.)

sure might be a throw-down piece, no? but yep: let's hold the autopsy until the 12th of never so we can decide on a good narrative.

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around the park where the Robert Fuller hanging took place where one store owner shared with 'The Convo Couch' reporter who was told the police never came by until five days after the hanging to look at the pictures.

Of course the death had been ruled a suicide right away, and the following day on the PD website was there a call out to the Public for anyone that has information to contact the Dept.?
Yes there was, but it was a post asking about information about finding the owner of the dog in the photo on their site. Yes, the day after the hanging.

Near the end there is a great clip of a video taken by a very shaken woman from her apartment's window as a huge number of cops were arriving and taking position around the building next door. This is the voice of a very scared, and concerned, woman expressing her fear over what she is witnessing.

One last point, those LA Sheriff's Dept. cops were out of their jurisdiction, and damn there were a lot of them swarming the place.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvUmbYY23ZU&feature=share&fbclid=IwAR3F7...

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wendy davis's picture

@aliasalias

i'd waited for 5 mins or so before it even started, and it's another hour and 15 mins?

maybe i'll turn it on and play if while i prep veg for curry. footage of robert fuller's hanging sounds grisly, but important.

out of their jurisdiction? wth? there sure were a lot of town locations in play.

thanks aliasalias.

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wendy davis's picture

@aliasalias
but had forgotten i'd need the water running, plut sizzling of the veg, so i'd even found
it on youtube in hopes there might be segments listed on the right sidebar. nope.

but i had made the mistake of watching the opening 5 minutes or so, making me queasy far beyond a 'normal person's' reaction. but i'd then had several mishaps in the kitchen: 'klutzes will be klutzes'. i need to shut down for the night, and sorry, but i haven't the wherewithal to even add a closing song.

love (and peace if you can manage it) to you all,
wd

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wendy davis's picture

LOS ANGELES (CBSLA) — The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors Tuesday voted unanimously to pursue an independent review of the investigation into Thursday’s fatal shooting of 18-year-old Andres Guardado by a sheriff’s deputy near Gardena.

“It’s best for the family, it’s best for the community, it’s best for the department to insist that fairness, impartiality, justice is done,” Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas said after the meeting.

Ridley-Thomas authored the motion asking the board to direct its lawyers, the inspector general, coroner and civilian oversight commission to ensure the “truth is uncovered and justice is served” after raising concerns about the integrity of the investigation.

Ridley-Thomas suggested that Sheriff Alex Villanueva — who on Monday reached out to state Attorney General Xavier Becerra to ask the department to monitor the investigation — might stymie attempts by the inspector general to effectively oversee the probe.

“Unfortunately, the sheriff’s department has a track record of not fully complying with requests, and even subpoenas, from the inspector general and the (civilian oversight commission),” Ridley-Thomas said.

In the motion, Ridley-Thomas said there was a need to take immediate action “to preserve the integrity of evidence that the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department may be collecting for the Andres Guardado fatal shooting investigation.”

Villanueva tweeted Monday that he was “committed to transparency and strengthening community faith in the investigative process.”
...............................................
During the meeting, Villanueva took to Instagram to claim that the motion was politically driven and that he was not allowed to comment during the meeting.
“You’re silencing my vote, you’re silencing the voice of 10 million residents that put me here in this office,” he said. “I don’t know if they realize that we’re actually doing a timely investigation into the death of Andres Guardado.”
...............................................
Guardado’s family issued a statement Monday after hearing the sheriff’s department had put a security hold on the results of Andres Guardado’s autopsy results that said:

“The family of Andres Guardado demands answers. They demand accountability. They demand, and deserve, full transparency from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department regarding the facts surrounding the death of this young man. We will not rest until these facts are fully disclosed.”

Huntsman said his office has asked to review video evidence, but had not yet received a response from the sheriff’s department.

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