By JOSH CAIN | jcain@scng.com | Los Angeles Daily News
PUBLISHED: April 8, 2019 at 7:16 p.m. | UPDATED: April 9, 2019 at 11:17 a.m.
Officers were dispatched about 9:20 a.m. to the 14400 block of Aviation Boulevard, where the shooting occurred, according to the Hawthorne Police Department. (Photo by Raphael Richardson)
By mid-morning Sunday, the Hawthorne Police Department already had raced into action to face a nightmarish scenario: a man armed with a high-powered rifle running through a packed shopping center parking lot, firing at officers as he fled.
The gun battle left the suspect shot in his torso and an officer shot in his leg. Bullet holes were found in nearby businesses, strays from a chaotic shootout.
Armored vehicles and SWAT teams rolled through the area, searching the suspect’s hotel room and vehicle for more weapons. A morning of terror and violence settled into a painstaking and deliberative investigation.
Less than 12 hours later, Hawthorne police would go through it all again.
This time, the shooting would occur right outside the police headquarters’ front door — at 6 p.m., police said a man at the station for a custody swap armed himself with a shotgun, then fired at the mother of his child, killing her steps from the lobby.
Inside the building were dozens of police, civilian staff and other law enforcement officials from around the region. At least one of the Hawthorne officers in the lobby had been among those at the scene as police chased the suspect in that morning’s first shooting. He only narrowly avoided being involved in a second.
“There’s just no planning for this sort of thing,” said Lt. Jim Royer, who commands Hawthorne’s detectives bureau.
Royer was back at the station Monday after working about 17 hours the day before. He went home at 2:30 in the morning, rested for five hours, then headed back to the station. There was still just too much to do.
Many of the department’s employees did the same. With about 100 sworn officers and 60 civilian staff, the mid-sized police force already was taxed, investigating and locking down one expansive crime scene. The second shooting stretched them to their limit.
“The only time you took a break was to go get coffee and to use the bathroom,” Royer said. “That’s it.”
Sunday’s burst of violence was unprecedented for Hawthorne — the last time a shooting occurred here was almost four months ago, Royer said, and the city only had one homicide in all of 2018.
For the second time that day, police from nearby Gardena, Manhattan Beach and El Segundo tuned in to the radio frequency for the South Bay Regional Communication Center, a consortium of the area’s police agencies that activates when one agency requests help.
Officers from each of those neighboring cities, as well as from Inglewood and Torrance, would end up patrolling both crime scenes for most of the day Sunday, the first which already spanned both Hawthorne and Manhattan Beach.
By Monday afternoon, homicide detectives from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department had taken the lead in investigating both shootings.
But for Hawthorne Police Chief Michael Ishii, his work wasn’t done — he said officers and staff who heard the gunfire and witnessed the shooting from the lobby Sunday “were shaken up.”
“One of the things I have to do as chief is make sure they’re OK and that they get help,” he said.
Two shootings, two in custody
While police deal with dangerous calls for help every day, reports of domestic disputes can be especially nerve-racking, officials said Monday.
Both shootings Sunday began as suspected domestic violence incidents, police and sheriff’s investigators said.
In the first, Hawthorne police responded to a hotel in the 14400 block of Aviation Boulevard at around 9 a.m. Monday after a report of a man with a gun chasing a woman through the hotel’s lobby and parking lot.
When officers arrived, they spotted the suspect, clad in military fatigues, running across Aviation Boulevard toward the Manhattan Gateway Shopping Center to the west.
The gunfight occurred when the officers chased the man into the shopping center’s parking lot.
Royer said Monday the man was armed with a “short-barreled rifle” with a high-capacity magazine. Despite initial reports that he might have had other weapons, it wasn’t clear Monday whether the suspect was found with any other guns in his possession.
Both the officer and the suspect were still recovering in the hospital Monday. Sgt. Michelle Sanchez, a sheriff’s spokeswoman, said the department was withholding his name.
Hawthorne officials identified him as being a having served in the U.S. Marine Corps.
Officials did not know his last city of residence.
The second shooting unfolded after police said 30-year-old Jacob Munn dropped off his 17-month-old child at the station for a custody swap. According to Hawthorne detectives, he went back to his truck to retrieve a shotgun.
They said as the child’s mother, 28-year-old Brenda Renteria of Simi Valley, was just about to enter the station, Munn shot at her with a shotgun.
With one shot, police said Munn struck the side of the building, leaving a large gash and a handful of small pellet holes. With another, he allegedly struck Renteria, killing her at the scene.
An officer in the lobby rushed outside at the sound of gunfire, Hawthorne police Lt. Gary Tomatani said. The officer saw Munn fleeing in his truck, and fired at him, but missed.
Police said Munn fled to the area of 133rd Street and Hawthorne Boulevard, abandoning his truck outside a Denny’s restaurant.
After an almost three-hour search involving officers from nearby agencies, helicopters, SWAT teams and K-9 teams, police found Munn hiding in the 4400 block of 134th Street.
He was arrested, and is being held on $2 million bail at the Hawthorne police jail.
The 17-month-old was unharmed during the shooting and was in police care until a family member could pick up the child.
Hawthorne officials said Renteria filed for a restraining order against Munn in Riverside County. They said there did not appear to be a court order sending them to the Hawthorne station for custody swaps, but police said they believed Munn had family in the area.
Ishii called the shooting “horrible,” while other law enforcement officials expressed shock at the brazenness of the apparent attack.
“I’ve never seen anything like this before,” said Lt. Scott Hoglund, a sheriff’s homicide detective and 30-year law enforcement veteran. “Typically a police department is a safe place for people to make a child exchange.”
The violence Sunday shattered a months-long period of calm that, even for Hawthorne, was atypical, Royer said.
“We went probably almost 110, 115 days without a shooting here,” he said. “So much for that.”