THE THIN BLUE LINE
On Thursday afternoon, Huntington Park Police Department officers responded to a report of a stabbing, the department said in a statement Monday. Responding officers found a victim suffering from “a life-threatening stab wound resulting in a collapsed lung and internal bleeding,” the statement said.
The victim described the attacker as a Black man in a wheelchair who “dismounted the wheelchair, ran to the victim without provocation, and stabbed him in the side of the chest with a 12” butcher knife” and then fled the scene in his wheelchair, HPPD said.
During their search, police found the alleged suspect a few blocks away holding a 12-inch butcher knife, HPPD said. The suspect allegedly ignored officer commands and threatened to “advance or throw the knife,” and officers used two separate Tasers to try and subdue the suspect but failed, HPPD said. “The suspect continued to threaten officers with the butcher knife, resulting in an officer-involved shooting,” HPPD said. It was not immediately clear how many officers were present or shot the suspect.
The circumstances preceding the killing are unclear, and officials have faced scrutiny as their narrative has appeared to shift. The Huntington Park police department said in a statement that officers were responding to reports of a stabbing allegedly committed by someone in a wheelchair at around 3.40pm on Thursday, and that they encountered Lowe, who was in a wheelchair and who they believed was the suspect.
The department claimed that officers attempted to detain him, alleging he ignored commands and “threatened to advance or throw the knife at the officers”, although the limited witness footage did not capture this. The department further said that officers “deployed two separate Tasers in an attempt to subdue the suspect”, but when “the Tasers were ineffective”, they shot him. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
The LA sheriff’s department, which is investigating the killing, said in an initial statement that Lowe attempted to “throw the knife at the officers”, but a spokesperson later told the LA Times that Lowe “did not throw the knife ultimately, but he made the motion multiple times over his head like he was going to throw the knife”. The spokesperson also said that two officers had fired roughly 10 rounds at Lowe, who was hit in the torso. The Huntington Park department does not use body cameras.
❋The Huntington Park police don’t wear video cameras.
