Skip to content
Advertisement

LAPD officer’s shooting could have had more victims, reports say

Advertisement

The 29-year-old man who shot a police officer in the lobby of the Los Angeles Police Department’s West Traffic Division and took aim at the officer’s partner intended to shoot other people at the police complex as well, it was reported this week.

About 20 people from the Olympic Park Neighborhood Council were meeting in an adjoining room when Daniel Yealu, who reportedly had unsuccessfully applied to join the LAPD, opened fire on the officers with a semi-automatic pistol around 8 p.m. Monday.

“The belief was, he was going to go a lot further than just the two people at the front desk,” Los Angeles Police Commission President Steve Soboroff told the Los Angeles Times.

Police Chief Charlie Beck said Yealu was carrying a Glock pistol with extra magazines.

Outside the complex, which also houses the LAPD’s Wilshire Station, at 4861 Venice Blvd., police found what Beck described as a “heavily modified” AK-47 semi-automatic rifle in Yealu’s parked car.

A further search of Yealu’s apartment in Palms revealed what Beck called an “armament” of weapons, including an assault rifle, a semi-automatic handgun, a 12-gauge shotgun and a large amount of ammunition.

Yealu had applied to join the LAPD in 2009, but was rejected, The Times reported. He had held a firearms permit since 2007 and a security guard’s license since 2005, but both expired at the end of 2013.

Neighbors at the apartment complex where Yealu lived described him as unfriendly. According to The Times, his last contact with his father, also named Daniel, was in October, 2013. In that phone conversation, Yealu senior said his son had told him he was undergoing background checks for work with the Burbank police department.

The city of Burbank said it had no record of Yealu applying for any position with the city.

Although still hospitalized and in critical condition from his four gunshot wounds, Yealu was arrested and booked early Tuesday, with bail set at $2 million. The still-unidentified LAPD officer was in stable condition, Beck said.

Advertisement

Latest