ROWLAND HEIGHTS — A sheriff’s deputy shot a man to death late Friday as he slashed his mother’s boyfriend with a meat cleaver, authorities said.
Alexander Acosta, 31, was pronounced dead at the scene, Lt. Liam Gallagher of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Homicide Bureau said.
His mother’s boyfriend, 51-year-old Victor De La Rivas, was hospitalized in stable condition and expected to survive, the lieutenant said.
Officials from the sheriff’s Walnut-Diamond Bar Station, which patrols Rowland Heights, responded to a report of a stabbing just after 9:10 p.m. inside a large apartment complex in the 18500 block of Colima Road, Los Angeles County sheriff’s Deputy Mark Pope said in a written statement. They arrived to find the suspect stabbing his mother’s boyfriend inside her apartment.
“They observed the suspect sitting on (the) victim’s chest… slashing his head and neck with a meat cleaver,” the deputy said.
Deputies ordered the man to drop the knife, but he refused and continued slashing at the other man, Pope said.
“Fearing he was going to kill the victim, one deputy fired three rounds at the suspect with his duty weapon,” Pope said.
The wounded suspect, who was struck by all three bullets, ran to the kitchen of the apartment where he collapsed, he said.
He was pronounced dead at the scene at 9:20 p.m., according to coroner’s officials.
The stabbing victim was hospitalized with severe injuries to his head, neck and upper body, officials said, but he was expected to survive.
Friday’s violence was the result of long-running tension between the two men, Acosta’s cousin, 21-year-old Bridgett Hernandez, and Aunt, 55-year-old Ruth Robles, said.
“They were having problems, the two of them,” Robles said. “It was festering.”
De La Riva’s family members could not be reached for comment Saturday.
Hernandez and Robles said they believed Acosta had come to see his mother at her apartment after being released from prison earlier in the week when he became involved in a fight with his De La Riva.
Acosta was released from prison Wednesday or Thursday after being convicted of burglary in January of 2009, according to investigators and court records.
Acosta has a criminal record in Los Angeles County dating back to 1999 and including charges such as drug possession, petty theft, vandalism, receiving stolen property, possession of an illegal weapon and giving false information to police, court records show.
Acosta and De La Riva had fought in the past, Robles said, though never to the level of Friday night’s incident.
“We’re not saying (Acosta) was right,” Robles said. “(But) it could have been prevented.”
Robles and Hernandez said they harbored no anger toward De La Riva, nor the deputy who shot Acosta, though Hernandez said she wondered if the deputy could have stopped the attack without fatally wounding her cousin.