A man in the middle of a narcotics investigation was shot to death Thursday evening by a plainclothes cop in Long Beach, where the police department has logged three officer-involved shootings in five days that have now left two suspects no more.
Don't know if they keep records for such things, but it seems as if LBPD wound be a contender.
]
Here are the shootings in reverse order, based on police reports and City News Service coverage:
– Complaints about drug dealing led the plainclothes officer to the 2300 block of East 17th Street around 5:15 p.m. Thursday, when he was confronted by a man who punched the cop. That prompted the lawman to identify himself as police and draw his weapon. When the attacker reached for his waistband, the unidentified cop opened fire. A metal bat was recovered from the waistband of the unidentified suspect, who later died at the hospital.
– Erick Balint, 32, was shot and killed by Long Beach police at the end of a running gun battle in Carson Wednesday morning.
– Greg Treadway, 49, allegedly pointed a handgun at officers in Belmont Heights Sunday and was shot and wounded.
As is protocol in officer-involved shootings, the Los Angeles County District Attorney's office and the county Office of Independent Review are investigating each incident.
Email:
mc****@oc******.com
. Twitter: @MatthewTCoker. Follow OC Weekly on Twitter @ocweekly or on Facebook!
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.