Officials Term Fatal Shooting Self-Defense

Concluding that Van Nuys resident Karen Reynolds acted in self-defense in the shooting death of her longtime boyfriend, the Los Angeles district attorney’s office announced this week that it would not prosecute her.

According to the Los Angeles Police Department, Reynolds, 47, shot her live-in boyfriend, 34-year-old Steve Pately, in the chest Jan. 25 after a domestic dispute.

LAPD Det. Roberta Moore said police found Pately in the couple’s Saticoy Street home at 4:30 a.m., shortly after Reynolds called for assistance. Moore added that Reynolds had visible injuries.

The couple had been living together in the 16700 block of Saticoy since 1995, according to authorities. Reynolds told police she woke the morning of Jan. 25 to find Pately striking her with a pillowcase filled with clothing and grinding his fist into her head. When Reynolds kicked over a telephone trying to escape, she said, Pately accused her of attempting to call the police and started hitting her with the phone.

Reynolds stated in the report that Pately then threatened to “cut her throat from ear to ear” and went to the kitchen. At that point, Reynolds said, she got her handgun and fired a warning shot. When Pately kept advancing, she said, she fired the fatal shot to his chest.

According to Reynolds, Pately had become increasingly violent with her over the past year, but she did not report any incidents because of her experience in a previous relationship in which she was severely beaten. Reynolds said that after reporting incidents of domestic violence in the previous relationship, her partner was sentenced to jail for a year. Reynolds told police she “did not want to go through that again.”