Police said the situation began around 11:10 a.m. with a 911 call about a dispute in a vehicle, which officers later determined was a kidnapping, an assault and an attempted car theft that left the victim hospitalized. Police went to the scene at the 1000th block of East 17th Street, which is just east of Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue. When they arrived, the man had left the car and was already on the roof. , according to police.
A maintenance worker at the scene told the Long Beach Post that he had met the man before police arrived. The worker, who asked not to be named because he was still shocked, said he was painting an apartment building when he stopped to drink water. It was then that he saw the man run towards him and climb the ladder. Once the man got up, the worker said, the man overturned the ladder and refused to go down.
You can see a man sitting on a rooftop in the distance. Photo by Fernando Haro.
The worker said the man appeared to be upset or had some sort of episode, so he offered him a watering can before he saw the gun and fled. Police soon arrived and surrounded the building.
A video provided by a neighbor shows the man holding and waving something gun-shaped. He goes back and forth across the roof, sometimes shouting, “I’m not pointing it out.” Police said they tried to escalate the situation while setting a perimeter, activating SWAT and putting residents in safety.
In the video, police periodically fire less lethal foam bombs at the man, some of which bounce off his body. When he extends his hand with what appears to be a pistol, he hears a sound of louder rounds and sinks to the roof.
Police said he was pointing the gun at officers, “which prompted officers to unload their pistols and an AR-15 patrol rifle.”
After being recorded, the video shows the man sitting on the roof and someone shouts “help” before the video ends. Another video shows him standing and stumbling before sitting back and falling forward.
Police said the man “continued to manipulate the firearm in his hand and refused to follow several orders to drop the firearm” before “finally failing to respond.”
About an hour and a half after the shots rang out, officers heavily armed with tactical equipment climbed a ladder to the roof.
Agents with tactical equipment have just approached the man. He seemed unresponsive, and officers could be seen throwing chest compressions at him after apparently dragging him away from his weapon. pic.twitter.com/jDUqENzcOJ
– Long Beach Post (@LongBeachPost) July 9, 2022
After dragging him away from his weapon, it could be seen how the agents were doing chest compressions to him. Firefighters assessed the man early and determined he was dead, police said.
No agents or spectators were injured. The victim of the kidnapping and the original assault is expected to survive, police said.
Editor’s note: This story was updated Sunday morning with more police information.