A Downey police officer shot and killed a man on the 11800 block of Downey Avenue on Saturday morning, according to authorities. The man was pronounced dead at the scene, and no law enforcement officers were reported harmed during the incident.
Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department deputies responded to the scene at about 7:50 a.m., per a news release cited by CBS News Los Angeles. Authorities have not specified what the initial call was for, nor have they said whether the man was armed or whether he fired first. No additional details were immediately made available.
Multi-Agency Review Now Underway
Because the shooting involved a municipal officer, the case falls to the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department's Homicide Bureau, which leads criminal investigations into deadly-force incidents by independent city police departments like Downey's, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. Deputy district attorneys from the county's Justice System Integrity Division typically respond directly to such scenes to conduct their own parallel legal evaluation alongside homicide detectives, per the same agency.
Whether the man was armed carries significant legal weight. Under California Penal Code Section 835a, as amended by Assembly Bill 392 in 2020, officers may use deadly force only when it is necessary to defend against an imminent threat of death or serious bodily injury, a standard that replaced the state's former “objectively reasonable” test and requires officers to exhaust feasible alternatives first, according to Justia Law.
If the man is determined to have been unarmed, jurisdiction over the investigation could shift entirely. Under Assembly Bill 1506, enacted in September 2020, the California Department of Justice is required to take over the investigation of any officer-involved shooting in which the deceased is found to have been an unarmed civilian, a measure designed to remove potential conflicts of interest from local reviews, according to the State of California Department of Justice. That handoff would not be quick: CalMatters reported in June that state DOJ investigations into fatal police shootings of unarmed civilians take an average of nearly two years and five months to complete, a delay the agency has attributed to staffing and funding shortages that have built a multi-year case backlog.
A Department Already Under Scrutiny
Saturday's shooting is not the first fatal use of force by Downey police in recent years. In June 2024, Downey officers fatally shot 29-year-old Alberto Nicholas Arenas in his backyard during a disturbance call involving fireworks, later reporting that an airsoft-style rifle was recovered at the scene; his family said he suffered from mental illness, according to the Los Angeles Times. Hoodline reported at the time on that case as well.
The new shooting also comes just three days after a Los Angeles County judge sentenced 24-year-old Carlos Daniel Delcid to life in prison without parole for fatally shooting off-duty Monterey Park police officer Gardiel Solorio in a Downey parking lot during a botched carjacking outside an LA Fitness in August 2022, according to the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office. Solorio was shot five times in that attack. The city has also seen other violent tragedies touch its police force, including the November 2015 killing of Officer Ricardo “Ricky” Galvez, who was shot while sitting in his personal vehicle outside department headquarters during a botched robbery; three assailants were later arrested and convicted in that case.
A Department Built for Scale
Downey maintains its own municipal police force rather than contracting with the Sheriff's Department, staffing approximately 121 sworn officers for a city of more than 111,000 residents. Public safety spending dominates the city's budget: in the current fiscal year, public safety accounted for 63% of general fund expenditures, with $46.9 million allocated directly to the Downey Police Department, according to the Downey Patriot.
For now, the central facts of Saturday's shooting remain unresolved. Authorities have not said what prompted the initial call, whether the man was armed, or whether he fired first, and no timeline has been given for when the Sheriff's Homicide Bureau or the District Attorney's Justice System Integrity Division might complete their reviews.
