'He didn't deserve to die': Family says man shot by police in California was mentally ill, unarmed

DOWNEY, Calif. — A mentally ill man was fatally shot Saturday by Downey police in his backyard after a neighbor called the police on him for lighting fireworks, his family said.

The Downey Police Department said it was responding to a call about a "disturbance" on Stewart and Gray Road about 6:15 p.m. Downey is 13 miles southeast of downtown Los Angeles.

The family said Alberto Nicholas Arenas, 29, had struggled with psychosis since he was 12 and lived with his parents at their home. On Saturday night, some of the family was barbecuing in the backyard where Arenas had been drinking, which often triggered psychotic episodes, his father, Alberto Hurtado Arenas, said.

He said his son had been lighting fireworks in the backyard when he got in an argument with a neighbor, who said the explosives were upsetting his dog. One of the neighbors called the police, the family said.

"He didn't deserve to die," said his sister, Samantha Arenas. "He wasn't a bad person — he was trying to get his life together."

His sister, who was not at the home at the time, said a SWAT team with a negotiator responded to the call, though she said she did not know why the call required the heightened response. She said her two younger siblings, who were home at the time, told her that police kept asking them if he had a weapon.

"They kept telling him no," she said. "He doesn't have anything — he's just mentally unstable."

Arenas' father said he'd been driving home from Azusa about an hour away when he learned the police were at the house.

For roughly two hours, his father said, his son stood in the fenced-off backyard while law enforcement stood outside the house's six-foot wooden gate, yelling at Arenas to come out onto the street. He said the gate has a large plank missing, where the negotiator spoke through.

The father said he called the Downey police station at least a half dozen times asking them to wait to engage with his son until he was home.

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