First Responders

WATCH: LAPD Shootout in Ralphs Grocery Store

December 17, 2020Joshua Skovlund
watch LAPD Ralphs shootout

On Nov. 1, a Los Angeles Police Department officer was shot and wounded during an exchange of gunfire in a Ralphs supermarket in the Granada Hills neighborhood.


According to a recorded 911 call released by the LAPD, a man armed with a gun was seen acting erratically in the intersection of Balboa Avenue and Lassen Street. An employee from Ralphs, a grocery store approximately a half-mile away from the previous location, called 911 while LAPD officers were interviewing witnesses at the last known location of the individual with a gun.


The Ralphs employee said that a man, who was later identified as 37-year-old Manuel Hernandez, had pointed a gun at him before running into the back storage area of the store. He told the 911 operator that Hernandez looked like “he was on drugs or something” and that he was acting hostile.


When LAPD officers arrived at the supermarket, a Ralphs employee showed them where Hernandez had last been seen, in the refrigerated storage area in the rear of the store.


Watch what happened next in the body-cam and surveillance footage:



An LAPD vice officer was shot by Hernandez during the incident and transported to a local hospital for a non-life-threatening injury to his hand. Hernandez was arrested after surrendering at a nearby gas station. Medics from the Los Angeles Fire Department transported Hernandez to a local hospital, where was treated for abrasions to his arms and his face.


Hernandez was cleared by an attending physician in the emergency department and was subsequently booked into an unspecified LAPD jail. The Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office has filed multiple charges against Hernandez, including attempted murder and assault with a deadly weapon on a peace officer.


This incident is still under evaluation to decide whether the LAPD officers’ use of their firearms during the brief firefight was justified.



Joshua Skovlund
Joshua Skovlund

Joshua Skovlund is a former staff writer for Coffee or Die. He has covered the 75th anniversary of D-Day in France, multinational military exercises in Germany, and civil unrest during the 2020 riots in Minneapolis. Born and raised in small-town South Dakota, he grew up playing football and soccer before serving as a forward observer in the US Army. After leaving the service, he worked as a personal trainer while earning his paramedic license. After five years as in paramedicine, he transitioned to a career in multimedia journalism. Joshua is married with two children. His creative outlets include Skovlund Photography and Concentrated Emotion.

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