The suspect accused of fatally shooting two people including a Baldwin Park police officer over the weekend has been identified as 22-year-old Eduardo Roberto Medina-Berumen, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said Monday.
Medina-Berumen was arrested on suspicion of murder and is being held in lieu of $4 million bail, according to the Sheriff’s Department.
Two law enforcement sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to discuss the active investigation, said Medina-Berumen has no known criminal history. He lives with his mother at the Baldwin Park address on Filhurst Avenue where gunfire erupted Saturday night, a source said.
Baldwin Park police responded to the home around 7 p.m. and were met with gunfire. Two officers —Samuel Riveros and Anthony Pimentel — were struck and were rushed to a hospital. Riveros, 35, of Pasadena did not survive.
Officers also found a man suffering from fatal gunshot wounds in the front yard of the home where the suspect was found. That man, who has not been identified, was taken to a hospital where he was pronounced dead. It was not immediately clear when the person was shot, but Sheriff Robert Luna said the suspect was believed to be responsible.
L.A. County Sheriff Robert Luna speaks to the media Sunday outside Los Angeles General Medical Center.
(Carlin Stiehl / Los Angeles Times)
Medina-Berumen was wounded by police and is being hospitalized in stable condition before being transferred to a jail facility.
It was not immediately clear whether he had legal representation. The Los Angeles County district attorney’s office had not filed charges as of late Monday morning.
“This tragic shooting is a sobering reminder of the danger our first responders face when they answer the call. The District Attorney’s Office responded to the scene and is working closely with law enforcement partners to support a thorough investigation,” Dist. Atty. Nathan Hochman said in a statement. “We will keep the family of the fallen officer as well as the other officer who was shot, and the entire Police Department, in our prayers as they grapple with this difficult loss.”
Eduardo Medina, who identified himself to a Times reporter on Sunday as the suspect’s father, said he first learned about his son’s arrest, the killings and the shootout from his daughter.
“I don’t understand,” the elder Medina said. “It’s so sad. It’s not good. It’s not good at all.”
Medina said his son lived on Filhurst Street with his ex-wife, from whom he’d separated 15 years ago. About five months ago, he said, his ex-wife told him she’d called police because their son was “acting weird.”
Medina said he didn’t know what that meant, but his ex-wife told him the police arrested their son and confiscated a gun.
Investigators are still working to determine a motive in the shooting.
Law enforcement officers investigate the scene of the shooting.
(Luke Johnson / Los Angeles Times)
Juan Ruvalcaba, 81, who lives across the street from where the shooting began Saturday night, said he initially thought he was hearing firecrackers, but then saw his neighbor shooting what appeared to be a long gun. He said the young man was in his own front yard and seemed to be shooting into the air and in the direction of a different street — but he didn’t see the man aiming at anyone or anything in particular.
Still, he said, he called the man’s grandmother, who also lived with him, and warned her to hide under a bed and not let her grandson inside.
Ruvalcaba also went inside his house, so he didn’t see what happened next, but was shaken by news of the two deaths. “Thank God that I’m still here,” Ruvalcaba said.
He said he had never been scared of his neighbor and didn’t know of any serious behavioral or mental health issues, but he said Medina-Berumen was often disrespectful to his grandparents. He said he often saw Medina-Berumen outside smoking something, though he didn’t know what, and worried he may have been under the influence of drugs during the shooting.
On Monday morning, the 4200 block of Filhurst Avenue was quiet after days of activity in the normally peaceful neighborhood. A small group of family and friends gathered in front of a memorial set up to mourn the civilian killed on Saturday.
A little after 7 p.m on Saturday, resident Tamara Ayala heard three gunshots that she initially thought were fireworks. She checked her Ring camera that points to her front yard and saw a man lying motionless on the sidewalk in front of her home.
“We didn’t know if he got shot, if he got beat up or what,” Ayala said. “We just heard three loud bangs.”
Ayala said the man who was shot was dropping his wife and daughter off at a housewarming in the neighborhood and got into a verbal altercation with Medina-Berumen, possibly over parking in the neighborhood.
Police arrived at the scene within five minutes, and when they did, Medina-Berumen began to open fire in their direction, Ayala said.
“I heard 15 to 20 shots,” Ayala said. “We barricaded ourselves in the den because we were so frightened and the poor officer was by himself. He was out there for almost 10 minutes until the rest of the police officers showed up.”
Another neighbor, who declined to give her name to a Times reporter, said she’s known Medina-Berumen since he was young and could not have expected this kind of violence.
“We knew them since our kids were little, we knew him since he was little,” she said in Spanish. “We would see him grow up over the years but we didn’t have any communication with him.”
Times staff writer Grace Toohey contributed to this report.
