Incident: Friday, July 24, 2026, about 8:48 p.m., Bellflower, California. Footage released September 4, 2026 by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.
Lakewood Station deputies fired. Bellflower is a contract city, so the station name and the city name are two different things, and they get named separately here.
THE CALL
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It came off the 10000 block of Artesia Boulevard: a man had pointed a handgun at a victim. The victim gave deputies a description and the direction he had gone. It went out as an assault with a deadly weapon suspect, armed with a firearm.
WHAT HAPPENED
A deputy found Lee Davidson, 33, on the 17500 block of Grand Avenue — a different block from the call — and took him at gunpoint while more deputies rolled in.
Deputies could see a handgun protruding from the front of his waistband, and they called it out on the air.
He would not comply. He was given commands for a long time. A TASER 10 was deployed and it was ineffective. A second TASER 10 deployment put him on the sidewalk, and he continued to disregard commands and reached for the handgun. That is when deputies fired.
He was transported and died at a hospital. The medical examiner documented multiple gunshot wounds. No deputies and no other persons were injured.
Recovered at the scene: a Polymer-80 .40-caliber semiautomatic handgun, loaded with one live round in the chamber and more in the magazine.
THE BREAKDOWN
I know this ground. Lakewood Station out of the Paramount substation is the first place I ever worked in law enforcement, as a civilian CSO, and my parents worked there twenty-five years.
Here is what it is. A non-compliant suspect. Deputies say they see a gun in his waistband, and you can hear them say it on the air. He is moving around and not following orders. Then he reaches.
Watch it slowed down and zoomed in and you can see the reach. In real time on a patrol body camera it is a hard read — that is just true of this footage, and it is worth saying out loud, because people are going to watch this once at full speed and decide they did not see anything. The deputies on scene had already located that gun and called it out before any of this.
How do you avoid this shooting? Follow commands. Comply. You do not get shot. You go to jail.
That is not a throwaway line. They rolled up on him, took him at gunpoint, gave him orders for a very long time, and went to a Taser before they went to a gun. Twice. Neither one held him. He still reached for the pistol in his waistband.
The .40 came off the scene. No deputies were hurt. Good job.
WHERE IT STANDS
He is dead, so there is no case against him. The shooting has not been ruled on. The Sheriff’s Homicide Bureau has the investigation, with Internal Affairs and the county Office of Inspector General also involved, and the District Attorney’s Justice System Integrity Division reviews it afterward and publishes a memo. There is no public finding of any kind.
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