The Los Angeles Police Commission ruled Tuesday that two LAPD officers were justified in fatally shooting an armed 28-year-old man in a South Central alleyway last April, though it disapproved of some of the officers’ tactics.
The unanimous vote came after the commission heard directly from Daniel Hernandez Bravo’s family members, who questioned why the officers had to open fire and why Bravo was left on the ground with no immediate medical care afterward.
“Why was he not given any aid?” Bravo’s mother, Guillermina Bravo-Valiente, asked the commissioners in Spanish. “Do you believe they were correct with what they did? Because to me it seems like an injustice the way he died.”
Bravo was a passenger in one of two stopped vehicles that Newton Division patrol officers Kevin Ruiz and Luke Coyle pulled alongside about 9:40 p.m. on April 30 in the 2200 block of Wall Street, according to police. The officers told investigators that they’d noticed fresh “Flats” graffiti on a nearby building — an alleged tag marking territory of the Primera Flats gang — and suspected the vehicles’ occupants may be gang members.
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