A 38-year-old man armed with a knife was shot several times by an officer after stabbing himself and his mother in their North Long Beach residence in November, body-worn camera footage released on Wednesday, Dec. 13, shows.
On the morning of Nov. 8, a 911 caller reported that her son, Eriberto Penaloza, had started stabbing himself with a knife and was threatening to kill his family at their home in the 300 block of 69th Way, according to the Long Beach Police Department. Officers were initially responding to the incident as an attempted suicide but while heading to the house, learned that Penaloza had stabbed his mother.
The mother, along with Penaloza’s younger brother, had barricaded themselves inside a bedroom.
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An arriving officer found Penaloza inside the kitchen, still armed with the knife, and ordered him to drop the weapon, according to the body-worn camera footage. Penzola, covered with blood from self-inflicted stab wounds and repeatedly telling the officer “they told me to do it, I didn’t want to do it,” continued to advance toward the officer.
The officer fired five shots at Penaloza, who fell to the ground but continued to try to stand back up with the knife still in hand, the video shows. The officer then shot Penaloza five more times.
He was taken to a hospital where he later died from gunshot and stab wounds, police said.
Penaloza’s mother was stabbed multiple times and was also taken to a hospital with non-life threatening injuries.
No officers were injured.
While Long Beach police will lead an internal review of the shooting, the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office will investigate the shooting for any potential criminal conduct, as the office does for all police shootings in the county.
