The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department has launched an investigation following the fatal shooting of 18-year-old security guard Andres Guardado by sheriff's deputies. As KABC reports, Guardado, who police say was armed, was shot by an officer on Thursday 6 p.m. local time. Witnesses who knew Guardado said that he was armed because of his job as a security guard at a body shop.
Authorities said that deputies from the Compton sheriff's station spotted Guardado while patrolling the area, and police have alleged that he pulled a handgun on them when he noticed them. "Deputies observed the individual, at which point he observed the deputies," said Lt. Charles Calderaro during a briefing on Friday. "The individual then produced a handgun and began running southbound away from the deputies through businesses nearby."
Guardado ran away from deputies, and then a "deputy-involved shooting" occurred. "Deputies engaged in a short foot pursuit between the two businesses," Calderaro added. "At some point, deputies contacted the suspect and that's when the deputy-involved shooting occurred."
He was pronounced dead at the scene, and no deputies were injured. A gun was recovered from the scene, and Calderaro has claimed that Guardado was not wearing a uniform to indicate he was a security guard at the time of the shooting. It is currently not known if he fired his weapon, although it has been confirmed one deputy did fire their weapon at Guardado.
A co-worker of Guardado's, Andrew Haney, said that police "came up and pulled a gun on him, and he got scared and ran." His sister said that he had worked as a security guard for a while, and that he "had no armed weapons on him." An investigation by the Sheriff's Homicide and Internal Affairs bureaus is underway.
"I lost a part of me, it’s empty, and I’m never gonna have him back," his sister told CBS Los Angeles. "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."
