A 67-year-old man is dead and a 60-year-old man is in custody after Los Angeles police say a report of shots fired led them to a scene on the 1700 block of West 84th Street in South Los Angeles’s Manchester Square neighborhood early Friday morning. Officers arrived to find the older man suffering from what police described as a fatal penetrating wound, and paramedics pronounced him dead at the scene. The 60-year-old man reportedly holed up for a time before officers took him into custody after striking him with a less-lethal round.
According to MyNewsLA.com, the Los Angeles Police Department received the report of shots fired at about 6:10 a.m. near West 84th Street, just east of Western Avenue. Authorities have not made public either man’s name, and an LAPD officer said at the scene that it remained unclear whether the 67-year-old victim had actually been shot, since the exact cause of the wound was still undetermined. The 1700 block of West 84th Street sits within the LAPD’s 77th Street Division, which patrols nearly 12 square miles and serves roughly 175,000 residents across South Los Angeles.
Why the Cause of Death Is Still Uncertain
When police describe a fatal wound as a penetrating injury rather than confirming it as a gunshot, it typically means investigators at the scene could not yet distinguish between trauma from a firearm, a sharp-force weapon, or blunt force. The Los Angeles County Medical Examiner’s Office is expected to conduct a post-mortem examination to make that determination, a step forensic experts say is standard whenever initial findings leave the mechanism of injury unresolved.
Homicide investigations arising in Manchester Square are handled by the LAPD’s South Bureau Homicide Division, a specialized unit that covers 31 square miles across four South LA patrol divisions and investigates more than 40 percent of all homicides citywide. The division operates out of a station on South Broadway and takes the lead once patrol officers secure a fatal crime scene.
Less-Lethal Rounds Used to End the Standoff
LAPD officers used a less-lethal round to subdue the 60-year-old man after he reportedly holed up rather than surrender. These 40mm launchers fire foam or sponge-tipped projectiles at speeds up to 325 feet per second and are deployed as a de-escalation tool meant to gain physical compliance from barricaded or non-compliant suspects without resorting to deadly force, though the rounds have drawn scrutiny elsewhere over the risk of serious injury…