From [HERE] and [HERE] Los Angeles County sheriff’s officials said Wednesday that the Gardena area where Andres Guardado was fatally shot five times in the back by a deputy was a crime hot spot, generating 23 calls for service in the last five and a half years. 

But they said they have no evidence that Guardado, 18, was linked to any of those incidents and failed to describe what prompted Deputy Miguel Vega to shoot him.

The L.A. County Sheriff's Department said Wednesday there's no surveillance video of the fatal June 18 shooting of Andres Guardado because detectives had removed the digital recorder for the property's security cameras as part of the investigation into another shooting at the same location 11 days earlier.

However, business owners at the shopping center previously have said the cops removed cameras the day of the shooting. According to FTP after they killed him, police then destroyed all the cameras that may have caught the interaction before stealing the DVR from the repair shop.

Capt. Kent Wegener, the head of the department’s Homicide Bureau, told ABC7 that investigators have taken six or seven exterior cameras from the scene, claiming two of the cameras were missing their memory cards.

A search warrant was obtained to gain access to any “web-based video or security footage from the third-party vendor who supplies the service at the scene,” Wegener said.

However, Heney disputes this claim and said police “got the warrant after they took the cameras.”

“This is the first camera they yanked off the wall,” Heney said pointing towards one of the broken devices in an interview posted on Twitter. “They broke it off and took it right off the wall,” he said as he pointed out another.

“They were just trying to be malicious and covering themselves,” he said.

“They illegally got into everything, then they had the place locked down and then they got the warrant,” he said.

Other information released by Commander Chris Marks at a news conference addressed aspects of the incident, but not the central question: Why did Deputy Miguel Vega shoot the 18-year-old Guardado five times in the back? [MORE]

In a statement, the Guardado family’s attorney said the news briefing, which was billed as an update to the June 18 shooting investigation, “did nothing to explain to the family or the public” why Guardado was shot. 

“The department’s attempt to convolute and cherry pick the facts to create a narrative that links Andres’ death to previous incidents of crime near the shop is nothing more than an attempt to justify the killing of this young man,” attorney Adam Shea said in a statement. “The Sheriff’s Department has once again failed the Guardado family who were hoping today would be the day for truth in Andres’ death.”

At the briefing, sheriff’s officials played a short clip from a security camera that captured the beginning of Guardado’s encounter with the deputies. The clip, which skips intermittently throughout, shows Guardado talking with the occupants of a white Lexus. He runs away as two deputies get out of their patrol car and give chase. 

Investigators said they are still trying to identify the people in the Lexus.

On the night of June 18, Guardado had been seen talking to someone sitting in a car in front of the entrance to a car shop in Gardena, in southwest Los Angeles. According to the police version of events, Guardado looked at the deputies as they approached him. At some point, authorities say, Guardado, who worked as a security guard at a nearby auto shop but was not wearing a uniform, appeared to be carrying a handgun and began to run. As the teenager ran, one of the deputies fired. Deputy Miguel Vega hit Guardado in the back, killing him on the spot.

Guardado’s death prompted an immediate uproar and mass protests. The victim’s family demanded an investigation and the release of all information on the case. At first, the authorities refused to reveal the results of the official autopsy. Guardado’s parents responded by requesting an independent examination of the body. After those results were made public following days of protests, the local coroner relented and, against the wishes of the Sheriff’s Department, shared its conclusions and it confirmed what the family’s autopsy had already found: five chillingly precise gunshot wounds on Guardado’s back.

What followed paints a grim picture of the opacity that still surrounds the use of force in Los Angeles, a city with a long history of police brutality. After the results of both autopsies confirmed the killing of a young man who was clearly running for his life, Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva went on the defensive. “These things take time, they are not done overnight,” Villanueva said. He then blamed accounts of potential witnesses from social media for slowing down the process, and insisted that “everyone who says that means that’s another potential witness that we have to interview.”

Guardado’s family would have none of it and demanded answers. Andrés, they said, did not own a gun. “My son wanted to be a doctor,” Elisa Guardado said. “He wanted to take care of me. Who’s going to take care of me now?”

Pressure surrounding the case has grown. And Villanueva has grown impatient.

County Supervisor Hilda Solis criticized the police response. “This young man who had his whole life ahead of him was killed at the hands of law enforcement,” Solis wrote in a statement. “I join the thousands of protesters in their demands for answers and accountability.” Solis then suggested an independent inquiry over Guardado’s death. “The status quo must change,” she said. A few days later, along with fellow supervisor Janice Hahn, Solis put forward a motion to reallocate funds away from Villanueva’s department. Villanueva did not take the criticism kindly. “Are you trying to sow more distrust between law enforcement and the community?” Villanueva asked. “Are you trying to earn the title of ‘La Malinche’?”

Villanueva’s reference to La Malinche, an indigenuous woman enslaved by Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés long characterized as a traitor, is historically misguided, but it is also sexist and racist. Solis argued as much on Twitter, and rightly so.

For a city like Los Angeles, the Guardado case and the conflict between Villanueva and Solis suggests a dangerous juncture. In the aftermath of the mass protests over the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, the city of the Rodney King riots should be careful not to fan the flames of indignation. Groups of protesters have begun gathering outside the home of Vega, the deputy who shot Guardado, while the union that represents Guardado’s father has demandedVillanueva’s resignation, as well as that of Los Angeles County District Attorney Jackie Lacey.

Villanueva’s public mishandling of the Guardado case has also revealed disturbing attitudes inside his department. Capt. John Burcher, Villanueva’s chief of staff, posted an incendiary comment on Facebook, suggesting Guardado “chose his fate.” He has since been reassigned, but the insolence was not just an accident.