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Phillip Lopez

Age : 42

Gender : Male

Race : Latino/a/e

Date : 09/20/2021

Location : 1000 block of East Willow Street

City : Signal Hill

County : Los Angeles

State : California

Agency : Signal Hill Police Department

Officer(s) :Jorge Ramirez

Cause of Death : Gunshot

Event : Killed by police during response to stabbing incident

OPEN RECORDS SUMMARY :

On 09/20/2021, Signal Hill Police Department Officer Jorge Ramirez shot and killed 42-year-old Phillip Lopez on East Willow Street after police responded to a reported stabbing outside a Food 4 Less grocery store. A detailed Los Angeles County District Attorney review released in 2023 identified Ramirez as the shooting officer and reconstructed the encounter using police body-camera video, civilian surveillance video, witness statements, forensic evidence and the autopsy.
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The encounter began at approximately 12:55 p.m. when Lopez became involved in a physical altercation with another man near the loading dock outside the Food 4 Less at 1600 East Willow Street. Surveillance video and a civilian cellphone recording captured the altercation. According to investigators, Lopez stabbed the other man in the back with a knife and then walked west on Willow Street. The injured man called 911 and reported the stabbing.
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Signal Hill Sgt. Russell Hefte and Officers Delia Martinez and Jorge Ramirez responded in separate police vehicles. Martinez contacted the injured man and broadcast a description of Lopez and his clothing while Hefte and Ramirez drove west looking for him. Ramirez located Lopez walking west along the north sidewalk of Willow Street.
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Ramirez pulled alongside Lopez and repeatedly ordered him to stop. Lopez continued walking with a sweatshirt covering his right hand. Ramirez exited his patrol vehicle and continued ordering him to stop. Lopez then began running away. Ramirez drew his Taser and pursued him on foot. The encounter was being recorded by Ramirez's body camera.
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Lopez repeatedly looked back and asked Ramirez “Why?” while continuing away. Sgt. Hefte drove alongside the encounter and instructed Ramirez to use his Taser because police believed Lopez might still be armed. Ramirez fired the Taser, but it did not incapacitate Lopez.
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Ramirez then caught Lopez from behind and deliberately tripped him to the ground. As Lopez fell, the sweatshirt covering his right hand came off and revealed a large kitchen knife. Lopez quickly got back to his feet while still holding the knife.
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The subsequent sequence unfolded extremely quickly. Ramirez stepped toward Lopez and appeared on video to push him forward. Lopez remained standing, turned toward Ramirez, and Ramirez fell backward onto the ground. According to the DA's reconstruction, Lopez then moved toward Ramirez while holding the knife above his head. Ramirez attempted to keep Lopez away by kicking toward him.
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Ramirez drew his Glock 17 and fired six rounds. Multiple bullets struck Lopez, who collapsed on the sidewalk. Only approximately 51 seconds elapsed between Ramirez's first contact with Lopez and the shooting, and approximately three seconds elapsed between Ramirez falling onto his back and firing.
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Sgt. Hefte requested an ambulance and began CPR. Lopez was transported to Long Beach Memorial Hospital and pronounced dead at 1:31 p.m. The medical examiner determined that he died from a gunshot wound to the torso. Two bullets struck him and two additional rounds grazed him. One projectile passed through his arm and chest, penetrating both lungs and his aorta.
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Investigators recovered a large kitchen knife from the sidewalk and subsequently found Lopez's DNA on its handle. Five 9mm cartridge casings from Ramirez's handgun were recovered, although body-camera evidence established that Ramirez actually fired six rounds.
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The later investigation also corrected an important limitation in the original news coverage. Early reports did not identify the officer who killed Lopez, but the Los Angeles County District Attorney's final review definitively identified him as Jorge Ramirez. Sgt. Hefte and Officer Martinez were also present during portions of the response, but Ramirez fired all six shots.
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Ramirez did not provide investigators with a voluntary statement following the killing. The District Attorney therefore evaluated the shooting without a voluntary account from the officer who fired, relying instead on the extensive video, physical evidence and statements of other witnesses and officers.
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On 08/18/2023, nearly two years after Lopez's death, the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Justice System Integrity Division concluded its review. Prosecutors determined that Ramirez reasonably believed deadly force was necessary to defend himself from an imminent threat of death or serious bodily injury and declined to prosecute him.
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The evidentiary record in this case is unusually substantial. The original stabbing was recorded by Food 4 Less surveillance equipment and a civilian cellphone; all three responding Signal Hill officers wore body cameras; and another business's surveillance camera captured the final physical confrontation. Sgt. Hefte's patrol-car dash camera, however, was not functioning that day.
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No substantive public challenge by Lopez's family to the official reconstruction of the final confrontation, and no wrongful-death or civil-rights lawsuit arising specifically from his killing, was located in the later records reviewed for this update.
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OFFICER BACKGROUND
Jorge Ramirez was the Signal Hill police officer who shot and killed Lopez. The 2023 District Attorney report is especially important because the initial 2021 reporting did not publicly name him. Ramirez fired six times while lying on his back after the foot pursuit, failed Taser deployment and physical confrontation.
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Ramirez declined to give LASD investigators a voluntary statement after killing Lopez. His body-camera recording nevertheless documented virtually the entire encounter, while Hefte's body camera and independent business surveillance provided additional views of the final confrontation.
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The department's tactical decisions immediately preceding the shooting are also documented unusually clearly. Hefte instructed Ramirez to use his Taser; Ramirez deployed it unsuccessfully; Ramirez then continued the foot pursuit, caught Lopez and tripped him from behind; the fall exposed the knife concealed beneath the sweatshirt; and the encounter escalated within seconds into the fatal shooting.
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Signal Hill Police Department has a particularly significant historical police-misconduct legacy. In 1981, Cal State Long Beach football player Ron Settles died in a Signal Hill jail cell after being arrested for speeding. Police initially characterized his death as suicide, but his family disputed that account, and the case became a nationally known police-brutality controversy. Signal Hill ultimately reached a civil settlement with Settles' family. The city has since formally acknowledged the case and established a memorial to Settles.
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That history is unusually relevant to the department's institutional record rather than merely unrelated historical misconduct: the Settles case became a defining controversy surrounding policing in the small city and resulted in decades of scrutiny over Signal Hill police practices.

SOURCE LINKS :

https://lbpost.com/news/authorities-identify-man-fatally-shot-by-signal-hill-police/
https://heysocal.com/2021/09/20/man-shot-killed-by-signal-hill-police-willow-st-partly-closed/
https://ktla.com/news/local-news/officer-fatally-shoots-man-suspected-in-signal-hill-supermarket-stabbing/
https://kfiam640.iheart.com/content/2021-09-23-authorities-id-man-fatally-shot-by-signal-hill-police-officer/
https://abc7.com/signal-hill-shooting-officer-involved-lasd-investigation/11033527/
https://www.cityofsignalhill.org/DocumentCenter/View/11789/Signal-Hill-Officer-Involved-Incident-Press-Release-9_21_21
https://da.lacounty.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/JSID-OIS-08-18-23-Lopez.pdf