LOS ANGELES — After Joshua Hatfield fled a traffic stop in late June, a police officer thought the 28-year-old was armed and shot at him outside an apartment building. But no gun was found at the scene.
In the case of Jermaine Petit, officers responding to a report of a man with a gun encountered the 39-year-old walking through Leimert Park. Believing the object in his hand to be a gun, police opened fire. Petit was holding a car part.
After both shootings, Los Angeles police acknowledged neither man had a gun. Yet the department pressed ahead with weapons cases against them: Petit for carrying an imitation firearm and Hatfield on suspicion of assaulting an officer with a deadly weapon.
