Authorities responded to the 500 block of Susana Avenue around 11:15 p.m. following a report of a female victim screaming. Witnesses reported seeing a man dragging the woman through the dirt and pavement into a residence.
"She was just screaming help me, somebody help me, somebody help me and around the same time I guess she had called the cops and the cops had finally came," Bur-gette Thompson of Redondo Beach said.
When officers arrived, they located an elderly female victim outside of the residence. Police say the suspect, later identified as Mitchell Allison,43, of Redondo Beach, had been beating his mother.
Officers saw Allison inside the residence and gave the suspect verbal commands. According to police, the suspect refused to comply, locked the door shut, and barricaded himself inside.
Police barged through the door and that's when they say Allison approached them with a knife. An officer-involved shooting ensued.
"Mr. Allison was in possession of a knife and our officers feared for their safety enough to use deadly force," Capt. Jeff Hink of the Redondo Beach Police Department said.
Allison was transported to Harbor General Hospital where he succumbed to his injuries.
During the later investigation, police learned Allison and his mother, identified as a woman in her 70s, lived in the home together.
No officers were injured during the shooting. The elderly woman's condition remains unknown.
According to Capt. Hink, Allison was arrested by the Redondo Beach Police Department in the 1990s. Little is known on what led to the domestic dispute between the suspect and his mother but neighbors said Allison was troubled.
"He had been going in and out of trouble. He had been going through a lot of depression, not wanting to live," Thompson said.
"He had actually come over to us and made a comment once about 'I could never hurt anybody, but I might hurt himself' which was an odd comment all together," Lisa Rodriguez of Redondo Beach said.
An investigation is underway by the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department and District Attorney's Office to determine if the officer-involved shooting was justified. The review is standard procedure following officer-involved shootings.
