L.A. deputies thought cell phone was a gun, fatally shot man

By Richard Winton
Los Angeles Times

LOS ANGELES — Two deputies apparently mistook a cellphone for a gun when they fatally shot an unarmed 22-year-old man in Athens, authorities said Monday.

A Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department spokesman said Woodrow Player Jr. twice pointed a "dark object" at deputies during a foot chase Friday, causing them to believe that he was armed with a handgun. The second time he pointed the object at deputies, they opened fire.

When investigators searched the alley where the shooting occurred, they recovered a cellphone next to Player, not a gun, said sheriff's spokesman Steve Whitmore.

"It appears the dark object was a cellphone," Whitmore said.

Investigators found a loaded gun in a car from which Player had fled, but it was several hundred feet from where he was shot. Continue reading