It has been 13 days since the last time Elisa Guardado saw her son alive.
“He said he would go home and eat some golden tacos, but he never came home. My family and my community feel destroyed because we still don’t know anything. We don’t know what happened to my son,” Guardado said in Spanish during a conference call. The press on Tuesday in Los Angeles demanded answers about the circumstances surrounding the death of Andres Guardado, 18.
The young man was shot dead by a Los Angeles County sheriff on June 18, while working as a security guard at a body shop in Gardena.
The results of Andrés’ autopsy report, attorney Adam Shea said at the press conference, could help shed some light on family and community members mourning the death of the 18-year-old. His firm, Panish Shea & Boyle LLP, represents the family.
But the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department put a “security hold” on Andrés’ case last week. The hold was made two days after Capt. Kent Wegener, head of the homicide office, said at a press conference that they planned to release the autopsy report to the public.
As long as “the case remains on hold for security, the report cannot be released” to the public, Sarah Ardalani, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County medical examiner, told NBC News in an email.
The fact that officials have not explained exactly what triggered the shooting involving the deputy that resulted in the murder of Andrés has made the “family grieving process much more difficult,” attorney Spencer Lucas told NBC News. , who works with Shea.
Require “immediate release” of the report
Since then, the Guardado family has been urging officials to immediately release the Los Angeles County coroner’s report after Andrés’ autopsy.
Andrés’ parents, Elisa and Cristóbal, and their lawyers sent a letter to Sheriff Alex Villanueva on Sunday “demanding the immediate release” of the autopsy report after it was suspended “without explanation or justification.”
The Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department did not respond to NBC News’ request for comment on the letter or the “security hold” placed on the autopsy.
The family and lawyers sent a letter to the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors on Monday urging them to “intervene and organize the publication of Andrés’ autopsy report,” after “similar requests made to Villanueva were” ignored. “
The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors did not respond to NBC News’ request for comment.
At a time when “there has been conflicting information as to exactly what happened,” Shea said, they have not received a response after the “county and sheriff’s department declined to give us information.”
The family has hired an independent forensic expert to perform an autopsy, Lucas said, and they hope to have results in a matter of days, “and that really should shed light on exactly what happened.”
According to Wegener, two agents from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Office saw Andrés talking to someone in a car on West Redondo Beach Boulevard when he looked at the agents, “pulled out a gun” and began to flee. After officers chased Andrés in an alley at the back of a building, one of the officers shot him six times, hitting him in the upper torso. Andrés was pronounced dead at the scene.
Shea said that according to information “they have at the moment from the witnesses is that they believe he was shot in the back.” Wegener said the autopsy results would determine that.
At the scene, investigators recovered a modified .40 caliber semi-automatic pistol that appeared to have been rebuilt from different parts. He had no marks or serial numbers and had not been fired, according to Wegener, leading police to believe Andrés did not fire the gun.
Authorities have suggested that the gun belonged to Andrés, “and that the information is contrary to everything the family, friends and co-workers know,” Shea said.
“We don’t think he had a gun. There was a gun on the scene, how and why that gun was there and who it belonged to is a question that needs to be answered.”
Authorities have yet to say what caused the shooting.
One reason why the details of what caused the incident remains unclear is that officers had no body cameras, and investigators have had trouble accessing surveillance video from the alley where the shooting took place.
It is still unclear if there is any surveillance video showing what happened, Shea said.
Authorities have not yet released the names of the deputies involved, but sources close to the case identified them as deputies Miguel Vega, who opened fire, and Chris Hernández, who did not fire, the Los Angeles Times reported.
“Many options for a bright future”
Cristóbal Guardado, Andrés’ father, told NBC News in Spanish that he is still waiting for his son to return home.
“My son was a child with many options for a bright future. He liked to work, study and play sports,” he said, adding that his son dreamed of becoming a doctor one day.
Guardado’s job as a security guard was one of two jobs he had while studying at the Los Angeles Technical College of Commerce, his family said.
Villanueva on Monday told members of the Compton City Council that he would soon make public investigative findings on the Andrés shooting, including surveillance videos and search warrants, reported KNBC, an NBC affiliate in Los Angeles.
“We have been asking for very basic information that should be provided to a bereaved family,” Lucas said. “It not only makes the event that much more difficult, it adds more stress and pain to the family.”
The Guardado family has already begun the process to formally sue Los Angeles County officials for the murder of their son, Lucas said.
“The only thing we want is justice for Andrés and that the people who harmed him pay for what they did to my son,” said Cristóbal.
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