#Maxine Waters demands probe into police shooting death of Latino man

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Protesters confront Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies over the death of 18-year-old Andres Guardado.
Reuters

Rep. Maxine Waters is demanding an independent probe into the fatal shooting of a young Latino man by a California deputy.

Andres Guardado, 18, was killed Thursday when Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies say they spotted him with a gun in front of a business in Gardena, setting off a foot chase.

Authorities have still not said what exactly prompted the deputy to shoot the teen six times, and the case led to a tense protest in the city Sunday, the Los Angeles Times reports.

Waters and fellow California Congresswoman Nanette Diaz Barragán are now calling on state Attorney General Xavier Becerra to conduct an independent probe into Guardado’s death so the “public can trust the investigation.”

“Another day, and another Black or Brown kid has been shot in the back by police,” a joint statement reads. “These killings must stop. We demand it. The American people demand it.”

The officers involved in the incident were not wearing body cameras at the time, Waters and Barragán noted.

LA County Sheriff Alex Villanueva told reporters Saturday that investigators were still gathering evidence in the shooting, but did not provide an explanation for the fatal confrontation, the LA Times reports.

Sheriff officials said they expect to outfit 5,200 uniformed deputies with body cameras soon, following a delay that Villanueva has blamed on the county’s Board of Supervisors, the newspaper reports.

Guardado, who was shot in the upper torso six times, had worked as a security guard for Street Dynamic Auto Body, near where he was shot. The owner of the shop told CBS Los Angeles he was working outside at the time in hopes of deterring a recent spate of graffiti.

But Capt. Kent Wegener, head of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department Homicide Bureau, told ABC News that Guardado wasn’t wearing a security guard uniform at the time.

Guardado, who attended Los Angeles Trade-Technical College, was also three years younger than the age requirement to work as a security guard in California and investigators have found no evidence to confirm he was working in such a role at the time, Wegener told ABC News.

A message seeking comment from Becerra’s office was not immediately returned Monday.