A man shot at least twice by Los Angeles Police Department officers in Koreatown on Saturday was not armed with real firearms, but instead was carrying an airsoft rifle and a pistol-shaped lighter, police said Tuesday.
Officers responded to reports of a man with a gun at a convenience store in the 3400 block of West 6th Street at about 8:15 p.m., the LAPD said in a news release.
While the man, later identified as Taylor Dean Sanders, 35, left the scene before police arrived, he was spotted about an hour later on a sidewalk near Wilshire Boulevard and Kenmore Avenue, police said.
After officers called out to Sanders, he pointed his rifle at them three separate times, prompting police to open fire on him thrice, wounding him. They also deployed, less-lethal 40mm rounds and bean-bag shotguns, police said.
Police initially said the man had opened fire with an assault rifle, but later clarified that he just pointed the gun at officers.
Eventually, Sanders “barricaded himself in an open-air stairwell” of a parking lot, leading to a standoff before he surrendered, the release said.
He was taken to the California Hospital Medical Center, where he is in stable condition. No officers were injured.
After Sanders was taken into custody, police said he was using “two replica firearms,” a black airsoft rifle and a “black and orange butane lighter in the appearance of a small pistol.”
He was booked for brandishing an imitation firearm, and he is being held at Men’s Central Jail in lieu of $50,000 bail.
He is due to appear in Los Angeles County Superior Court on Tuesday.
