LOS ANGELES, Calif.–Authorities today identified a woman fatally shot by three Los Angeles police officers in Watts when she allegedly refused to drop a handgun that she was pointing at a neighbor.
Brenda Williams, 56, was shot about 7:30 p.m. Wednesday in the 10000 block of Anzac Avenue, the Los Angeles Police Department reported. She died at the scene.
The shooting was one of three involving LAPD officers on Wednesday–two of them in Watts and one of them in Panorama City.
In the Williams shooting, officers were sent to the location in response to a report that a woman had fired shots at her daughter and two grandchildren, police said. Williams was sitting on the porch of her home when officers arrived.
“The officers drove down the street toward the location of the suspect,” police said. “The officers took a position across from the suspect and told her to drop her gun. The officers then saw the suspect point her weapon at a neighbor across the street. Three officers fired their weapons at
the suspect, striking her multiple times in the upper torso.”
Paramedics pronounced Williams dead at the scene. A loaded .22-caliber semiautomatic handgun was recovered at the scene, police said. Police could not confirm broadcast reports that Williams was deaf and could not hear the officers’ commands.
The other officer-involved shootings on Wednesday: At about 8:25 a.m., Jose Solario, 46, was fatally shot when he allegedly pointed a shotgun at officers in his residence in the 1700 block of East 115th Street in Watts.
And about 11 p.m., an officer shot and wounded a man who allegedly pointed a handgun at officers investigating a report of a shooting a few hours earlier in the 8500 block of Cedros Avenue in Panorama City.
