The circumstances of the tragedy are still unclear.
A teenage girl grabbed a Los Angeles sheriff's officer's gun and fatally injured herself, law enforcement announced Monday.
The tragedy took place Sunday evening in City of Industry, a large suburb of Los Angeles, in a sheriff's station after the young girl knocked on the door, according to a press release from the sheriff.
When the officers opened the door, “the teenage girl ran into the lobby, grabbing the officer’s firearm,” the document said.
“A struggle” then began “between the deputies and the young girl who was armed with the agent’s firearm,” the press release added.
“During the struggle, the teenager suffered a gunshot wound.
» Dispatched to the scene, firefighters pronounced him dead.
An investigation has been opened.
According to initial information, the incident is linked to a call made earlier to sheriff's agents about a "family disturbance".
The sheriff's department insisted that the tragedy was not linked to "an officer-involved shooting."
Frequent drama
Law enforcement interventions that take a fatal turn are quite common in the United States.
According to an independent tally by The Washington Post, more than 1,100 people have been shot and killed by police in 2023. These numbers are unofficial, and police departments are not required to report incidents to the federal government.
This incident adds to the long list of tragedies involving firearms in the United States, which pay a very heavy price for their spread across the country and the ease with which Americans have access to them.
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The country has more individual weapons than inhabitants: one in three adults owns at least one weapon and almost one in two adults lives in a home where there is a weapon.
Around 49,000 people died from gunshots in 2021, more than half of them suicides, compared to 45,000 in 2020, figures without comparison with those of other developed countries.