Detectives treating Los Angeles bishop’s death as homicide
LOS ANGELES (AP) — A Roman Catholic bishop in Southern California was shot and killed Saturday just blocks from a church, a slaying that’s stunned the Los Angeles religious community, authorities said.
Detectives are investigating the death of Bishop David O’Connell as a homicide, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.
Authorities have not said whether the bishop was targeted in the shooting. The sheriff’s department would not say how or specifically where his body was discovered.
O’Connell was found in Hacienda Heights around 1 p.m. Saturday with a gunshot wound. Sheriff’s deputies were called to the area — just blocks from the St. John Vianney Catholic Church, which is part of O’Connell’s archdiocese — on a report of a medical emergency.
Paramedics pronounced him dead at the scene, the sheriff’s department said. The archdiocese said O’Connell lived in Hacienda Heights, but it was not immediately clear whether he was found at his home or elsewhere.
The sheriff’s department on Saturday initially only said homicide detectives had responded to “a shooting death investigation” with a male adult victim. Authorities did not identify the victim as O’Connell until Sunday morning.
Los Angeles Archbishop José H. Gomez only said O’Connell, who served in the city for 45 years as a priest and later a bishop, “passed away unexpectedly” without mentioning the violence. The archdiocese on Sunday referred media inquiries to the sheriff’s department.
“It is a shock and I have no words to express my sadness,” Gomez said in a statement, calling him “a good friend.”
“Bishop Dave was a man of deep prayer who had a great love for Our Blessed Mother,” he said. “He was a peacemaker with a heart for the poor and the immigrant, and he had a passion for building a community where the sanctity and dignity of every human life was honored and protected.”
Hacienda Heights is an unincorporated community about 20 miles (30 kilometers) east of downtown Los Angeles.