Killing of Andres Guardado

Andres Guardado (November 3, 2001 – June 18, 2020) was an 18-year-old Salvadoran-American man shot in the back and killed by a deputy sheriff from the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department on June 18, 2020, in the unincorporated community of West Rancho Dominguez, California, just outside of the Harbor Gateway section of the City of Los Angeles. Guardado ran from two uniformed police officers into an alley, where he died after being shot by deputies. Seven shots were fired and Guardado was hit in the upper torso. Police say that Guardado produced a handgun during the chase. Investigators do not believe it was fired. Accounts of the incident are disputed between police and witnesses. Police stated they were searching for footage of the incident. Store-owner Andrew Heney reported that several cameras at the scene, including a digital video recorder that stored surveillance footage, were taken and destroyed by police.

Local protests emerged in response to the killing of Guardado and involved protestors and media reporters being tear gassed and shot by rubber bullets at the sheriff's station in Compton. The incident was widely reported as the second police killing involving the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department deputies within two days of one another, the other being Terron Jammal Boone, who was identified as the half-brother of 24-year-old Robert Fuller. Guardado's death came in the wake of the murder of George Floyd and subsequent protests. According to a whistleblower, the police who killed Guardado were trying to join a violent gang within the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. In November 2020, the L.A. county coroner's office ordered an inquest to be conducted in the case. This was the first inquest ordered in the county in over thirty years and was noted to be a challenge against the power of county law enforcement.