On March 14, 2025, at 10:20:28 p.m. LAPD officers called in code six for a traffic stop at Imperial and Broadway. Thirty seconds later, the officer had calmly radioed back to say they were closer to Spring Street.
At some point in the next minute and ten seconds, all hell broke lose. At 10:22:09, the officer was back on the radio, shouting that shots had been fired and she needed help.
She then requested an ambulance and a backup unit that had a shield.
"Suspect is armed!" she said.
The "suspect" was not armed.
According to the statement LAPD released yesterday, 35-year-old Mario Sanchez had been holding a cellphone. The coroner's brief (which labels him as Mario Torres) notes he had been killed by a shot to the head.
LAPD's statement indicates Sanchez had initially been stopped for driving erratically. But the tactics described in the statement suggest the officers treated it like a high risk stop - never approaching the vehicle and broadcasting commands from behind their vehicle doors instead.
Per LAPD, when officers told Sanchez to lower his windows and place his hands outside the vehicle, he yelled profanity at the officers, exited the car, and "removed a dark object from his waistband area," which he "quickly pointed" at them. The officers then opened fire.
Images from the scene are astonishing, showing the officers unloaded well over a dozen rounds on Sanchez. A screen grab from ABC7's broadcast suggests the passenger officer fired at least nine rounds (below). The report described the driver's vehicle as "riddled with bullets."
Footage from KCAL (below) suggests that passenger officer may have fired a dozen or more just on their own, and that the driver officer fired at least six or seven.
The sheer number of shots fired was likely why KCAL initially noted that it had "not been revealed" whether the man had opened fire on officers.
But it would have been immediately revealed if he had.
Instead, LAPD's first official statement, posted to Twitter several hours after the shooting was incredibly scarce on details. So much so that it suggests that the claim being made now - that Sanchez pointed a cellphone at officers - may not be supported by incident footage.
Because Sanchez was unarmed, the Department of Justice will conduct an independent review, as is required by A.B. 1506.
The names of the officers involved in the shooting have not yet been released.
This is the eighth shooting by LAPD this year.
Find LAPD's official statement here.
This is a developing story.
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Update: 9:42 p.m. March 25, 2025
After being questioned by Police Commissioner Rasha Gerges Shields about the failure to release the names of the officers that shot Mario Sanchez at the Police Commission on Tuesday, LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell acknowledged he had not yet held the required 72-hour-brief.
During 72-hour-briefs, investigators provide a preliminary run-down of the incident to the Chief and relevant staff, answer questions, and spotlight issues that require immediate department attention. Officers' names are generally released to the public after that briefing.
Under further probing, McDonnell admitted that - without running it past the Police Commission first - he had quietly done away with the policy that the briefing be held within 72 hours of an incident. He also said he would not be briefed about the Sanchez shooting until April 1, implying the officers' names would not be released until then.
The names were suddenly released Tuesday evening, as first reported by the People's City Council twitter account.
Four officers gunned Mario Sanchez down, something which suggests this was a case of contagious fire. From LAPD:
