The Los Angeles Police Department officer testified that he knew he wasn’t dealing with a “church group” on his driveway, after more than 20 years on the force, which included many gang assignments in the Santa Clarita Valley.
“I’m confident I remember seeing two armed men standing 2 feet from me, and I’m confident thinking I was going to die right then and there,” the officer told the defense attorney, according to a court transcript of his testimony about the moments before his leg was shattered by a 9mm round.
“And then my brain started thinking about saying goodbye to my family, is what I’m confident remembering, sir.”
After a four-day preliminary hearing, two men identified as Newhall gang members, Hector Sandoval, 21, and Anthony Sandoval, 26, were held to answer to three charges and several allegations relating to the April 21, 2024, shooting of the officer, which followed the hectic end to a prom afterparty held at the officer’s home for his daughter.
The following details are reported from court-ordered search warrants connected to the local investigation and a transcription of testimony from the preliminary hearing:
From the transcripts
The officer said he broke up the party with a shotgun while he was in fear for the lives of himself and the other unarmed teens at the party.
There had just been a physical confrontation inside, and someone had brandished a handgun, and that’s when the officer racked his shotgun and told everyone to leave.
But two of the partygoers came back with guns, according to the charges facing Anthony and Hector Sandoval at their May 19 arraignment: assault with a deadly weapon, criminal conspiracy and grand theft auto.
Anthony Sandoval’s charges include special allegations that he was on bail when his crimes were committed and a previous felony conviction for auto theft. Hector Sandoval is facing the same charges, as well an additional allegation that his victim, the officer, received a great bodily injury.
The court is treating the officer as a victim in the case.
Defense attorneys for the suspects sought to paint the officer as a criminal-threat suspect on the stand for how he cleared the party with his shotgun.
In the weeks following the shooting, footage emerged on social media showing the officer wielding a shotgun outside his house while trying to evacuate his home.
On the stand, the officer said he identified himself as a member of the LAPD when telling everyone they had to leave. He also said he gave an honest statement to the Santa Clarita Valley Sheriff’s Station deputies who investigated the shooting.
The defense attorney questioned what he said were discrepancies between the footage and the officer’s statements, repeatedly asking the officer if he was sure he was being truthful.
At one point, attorney Jacob Khachatryan brought up footage from an interview with the officer conducted just a few hours after he was shot.
He told officers he had racked his shotgun, saw that the threatening men had left and then put his shotgun away.
“That wasn’t true,” Khachatryan said.
“No, sir,” the officer confirmed, calling it an oversight because he was answering questions while in shock, with a leg in several pieces on a hospital bed. “I don’t remember a lot of these interviews, sir, because of the medication I was on.”
Judge David Walgren allowed the defense to introduce claims from a girl who said the officer followed her out of the party with a shotgun and threatened her. Video of that encounter was shared on social media in the leadup to the hearing.
Walgren told Khachatryan on more than one occasion that the questioning wasn’t relevant to the charges, but Khachatryan said he was trying to show the SCV investigators didn’t want to hear from that witness. Deputies later testified that the witness refused to come to the SCV Sheriff’s Station to make an official statement.
Both defendants remain in custody while awaiting their arraignment later this month, when they are scheduled to formally answer to the charges.
About six weeks before the shooting, Anthony and Hector, who are brothers, also pleaded not guilty to a felony charge of receiving stolen property. Their bail was revoked in that case, and they now have a pretrial hearing in San Fernando Superior Court on May 15 for those charges, according to L.A. County Superior Court records available online.
