Re “Filling in the Profile of a Man Named Ward Shot by Police”
Culver City police are insisting aggressively today that the late David James Ward is as unknown to them as he is to all readers of this story.
Why, then, did the 66-year-old transient, living in his car for years, boldly walk onto the grounds of the Police Station on Duquesne Avenue on Saturday, Sept. 21, through a vehicular entrance, where he was confronted and eventually shot to death by cops?
Confused? Angry? Neither?
Could a subtle technicality, a geographical detail, be responsible?
The whacky border of the City of Los Angeles bisects parts of the City of Culver City. You may simultaneously have one shoe in each city, go into, out of and back into one or the other without realizing it.
Is that what happened with Mr. Ward?
Law enforcement officials say that Mr. Ward, “casually but well-dressed” on the day of his death, had parked his car near a Venice Boulevard intersection that leaks into Los Angeles.
Mr. Ward recently had been ticketed and/or warned by LAPD that he no longer would be allowed to park in the Los Angeles niche where he was overnighting in his car?
Did he become desperate, despair of finding an acceptable solution?
Is that why he dared to walk where civilians are not allowed, a little after 7 on an unbusy weekend morning?
Did he come to the Culver City Police Dept., determined to die because he was unable to reach a denouement with his own psyche?
Because he was confused?
Because he bore an old grudge against Culver City?
Here is how the death scene went down, according to Culver City police sources:
After following a police car on foot through the iron gate that serves as the vehicle entrance, just south of the station’s main door, the invader drew a small calibre handgun on three uniformed officers. He promptly was shot to death by his intended victims.
His only words were believed to be “I have a gun.”
When he showed his firearm, officers ordered him to drop it. He refused.
The bizarre almost-standoff was over in 15 seconds.
Culver City police suspect it was “suicide-by-cop,” whereby a victim gets his death wish granted.
A Sheriff’s Dept. spokesperson for the investigators does not believe that was the motive.
Further, while an unknown number of shots were fired by cops, only one struck and killed Mr. Ward.
Why did only one bullet reach him?
Meanwhile, numerous curiosities and entanglements remain to be unscrambled.
