Alhambra Police Fatally Shoot Driver Who Lunged at Officer

Alhambra police shot and killed an apparently unarmed man Thursday morning when he bolted from his car after a traffic stop and then charged a pursuing officer in a dark stairway, authorities said.

The man, in his 20s, was not identified. Paramedics pronounced him dead at the scene of the shooting, which occurred on a quiet block of apartment houses near the corner of Valley Boulevard and 4th Street.

An officer stopped the man at the intersection about 4 a.m. after he observed him driving slowly in a maroon Honda Civic with no headlights on, said sheriff’s deputies, who were asked to assist in the investigation.

During the stop, the driver was acting “suspiciously” and giving conflicting information about who owned the car, sheriff’s spokesman Gabe Ramirez said.

The officer then called for a second patrol car, but the man ran off on 4th Street, “reaching toward his waistband as he ran,” Ramirez said.

The officers ran after him and were searching the area around an apartment building “when he suddenly appeared from a darkened stairway and charged” one of the policemen, Ramirez said.

The officer fired once with his service revolver, striking the man in the chest. Neither of the officers was injured, and no weapons were found on the man or in the area, Ramirez said.