By Brett Callwood
A police chase at 2 a.m. on Tuesday, April 15 ended with a woman being shot and killed by police in the parking lot of a Gardena strip mall near Rosecrans and Van Ness avenues.
Events escalated when police attempted to conduct a standard stop for a police violation and the female driver didn’t stop.
Gardena PD officers conducted a PIT maneuver (ramming the vehicle sideways, forcing it to stop). The driver pulled out a handgun, forcing three officers to fire. The woman was fatally struck.
It’s not currently known if the female driver fired her gun. However, there are reports that second person was transported to hospital.
“They crashed her car and boxed her in. 15 to 20 minutes later, they broke the window and two to three minutes after that they shot her,” a witness called John, who only gave his first name, told Fox 11 News.
The coroner’s office has identified the 54-year-old female as Alexandra Cordoba with the manner of death listed as homicide, and the cause of death listed as “gunshot wounds to the torso.”
The investigation is ongoing.
