LOS ANGELES - A toxicology report released Wednesday shows that a 19-month-old girl killed in a shootout involving her father and SWAT officers had ingested cocaine several days before the gun battle, according to the Medical Examiner's Office.

The small amounts of cocaine in the girl's system suggested she ingested it through skin contact, breast feeding, or inhaling cocaine that someone else smoked, said Craig Harvey, operations chief for the Los Angeles County Coroner's Office.

"If the child had picked up the cocaine (and swallowed it) there would have been a much larger, possibly fatal amount," Harvey said.

Authorities are waiting for toxicology results on the father.

"We would want to make a determination that the other children in the family had not been exposed to similar circumstances," said Los Angeles Police Department Chief William Bratton. "It is what it is. We have taken full responsibility for the taking of that young life. What we want to do with our investigation moving forward is learn what we can do to prevent something like that from happening again."

The standoff began just before 4 p.m. that Sunday when police responded to an "unknown trouble" call near 104th Street and Avalon Boulevard, where Pena lived and operated his business. When officers arrived, they were immediately fired upon by the suspect and they returned fire, Bratton said.

Photographs and a grainy surveillance video released by police show Pena holding Suzie while shooting at officers, then going back into the office of his auto sales business.

The final exchange of gunfire occurred when officers moved into position in the back of the building after rescuing Pena's 16-year-old stepdaughter, Bratton said.

A coroner's report showed that Suzie died from a police rifle shot to the head during the shootout, which has sparked an outcry from activists and family members about police tactics.

Bratton said earlier that preliminary results of the investigation show that no officer committed any crimes during the shootout. Pena fired about 40 shots, while 11 LAPD officers fired about 90 shots, he said.

The child was the second hostage to be killed in the 38-year history of the SWAT team, whose members have been getting counseling.

 

That is just sad to think the parents could possibly have exposed the child to drugs....

 

 

 

For some reason, every time I hear there was "outcry from activists", I feel like breaking something.

 

Babies on cocaine, snippers shooting the baby in the head...what's next?

Thank god that the feds just gave 5 million to the california police to hunt down people with decals on their cars because we all know decal = street racer...

Breaks my heart

 

have you noticed whenever the cops shoot the wrong person, something like this happens to take attention away from it, forget that...