LAPD offers a more detailed account of fatal shooting near Cal State L.A.

Los Angeles police officials gave a more detailed account Tuesday of how a man was killed in a police shooting last week near the Cal State L.A. campus.

The man was identified as Lino Soltero. At the Los Angeles Police Commission’s weekly meeting, LAPD Chief Michel Moore told the panel that Soltero was shot after he pulled out a handgun while trying to flee from officers. Moore did not say how many officers fired weapons and did not name any of the officers involved.

The shooting happened shortly before 7 p.m. after police spotted a dark colored sedan with no license plates and followed it to the area of Eastern and Lansdowne avenues, Moore said. As officers drove up, Soltero got out of the front passenger seat and led police on a brief foot chase. While running, he brandished a handgun, prompting one or more officers to shoot, according to Moore.

Soltero was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital. A loaded 9-millimeter handgun was recovered at the scene, Moore said. Under department policy, officers who use deadly force are placed on administrative leave until an internal investigation into the incident is completed.

The sedan driver fled, crashing into another motorist as he drove away, the chief said. He has not been identified.

On Saturday, a couple of dozen family members and friends crowded onto a plot of land next to where Soltero was shot. Mourners left bouquets, candles and bags of Skittles, Soltero’s favorite snack.

The small crowd listened and nodded as Soltero’s sister expressed her frustration with being left in the dark about the shooting.

“They’re not even giving us any details about what happened,” Bernice Soltero said about the death of her brother, whom she described as a “jokester, loyal, family-oriented.”

Adding to the indignity, she said, hospital personnel failed to inform the family of his death.

“We had to find out from the news that my brother passed away,” she continued.

She said that police squads had driven slowly past the vigil several times that morning, which she took as an attempt at intimidation.

The incident was the city’s 22nd police shooting of the year, nine of which have been fatal. The numbers are comparable with those for the corresponding period last year, when the LAPD had 21 shootings, eight of them deadly.