LOS ANGELES – A woman allegedly armed with a pellet gun was shot and killed by Los Angeles Police Department officers at a homeless encampment in the Silver Lake area, authorities said Thursday.
The shooting occurred at around 8 p.m. Wednesday at the intersection of Sliver Lake Boulevard and Bellevue Avenue, law enforcement sources told The Los Angeles Times.
LAPD News: Officer involved shooting Rampart area. The media staging location will be: Smilax Street and Silverlake Boulevard. PIO en route to gather info. The area will be impacted for several hours for this investigation.
— LAPD PIO (@LAPDPIO) February 23, 2023
The woman, in her 40s, died at a hospital, police said. Information on her identity was not immediately available.
According to police, officers went to the location, on a report that a woman was “armed with a revolver and pointed it at a passerby.”
“When officers arrived on the scene, they encountered the suspect … who produced a handgun and pointed it in the officers’ direction, at which point an officer-involved shooting occurred,” police said in a statement. “A CO2-powered revolver BB/Pellet Gun was recovered at (the) scene.”
No officers were injured. The area where the woman was shot by officers is the site of a large homeless encampment.
The shooting is being investigated by the LAPD’s Force Investigation Division, the L.A. County district attorney’s office and the LAPD inspector general’s office.
The LAPD said it would release a report about the shooting within 45 days that could include officers’ body-worn camera footage.
