LAPD officer sought for questioning in Calif. man's murder
POMONA, Calif. -- A 23-year-old California man was fatally shot near a bar around 3:30 a.m. Friday and authorities are now looking at a rookie LAPD officer as a person of interest, according to CBS Los Angeles.
Police found the car of rookie LAPD officer Henry Solis, 27, who they are looking to talk to about a fist fight that escalated when Salome Rodriguez Jr. was killed. Rodriguez later died at a hospital, according to the station.
A LAPD spokesman told CBS Los Angeles that it was too early to comment on whether the officer may have been involved in the death.
Solis has not reported for work since the shooting and has not been answering his cell phone, reported the station. The probationary officer's Volkswagen Jetta was found abandoned in an alleyway a few blocks from the scene of the shooting.
Family members told reporters that Rodriguez -- the oldest out of six children and known to them as Junior -- was walking back to his car Friday after a night out partying with friends.
"We're just hurt. We're just hurt that we lost our son," Rodriguez' mother, Lydia, told CBS Los Angeles.
One family member suggested that his death may have been a case of mistaken identity.
"Witnesses said Henry Solis got into an altercation earlier," his aunt, Aracely Monlina, told the station. "Then I guess he confused Junior with that person, or something and confronted Junior. Junior said, 'It's not me, it's not me.'"
Family and friends were at a makeshift memorial at Third and Main, where the victim had been shot.
"Why run?" Monlina wanted to say to Solis, "We know you did it, we know it's you. Turn yourself in. Explain to the family why, what happened, why him? Why [shoot him] five times? Just why?"
