EL MONTE, Calif. (AP) - A supplicate to constabulary to analyse a gaunt, seedy-looking humankind with a boy was the beginning of a murderous end to four years on the run for Manuel Benitez, a bygone child actor who authorities circa used a dumbbell to cane his girlfriend to death in 2004. Benitez was swallow and killed by the coppers Tuesday night about two hours after he holed up in the back of a Chinese restaurant where he'd captivated his 7-year-old son hostage. He was armed with two handguns and had threatened to mischief the boy, enforce said. Benjamin Everett, whose origin was slain when he was 3, was marksman in the thigh as a SWAT body rupture into the locked bathroom, but his torture was not considered life-threatening.
The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, which was investigating the incident, released no report on who wounded the boy. He was listed in accountable acclimate at County-USC Medical Center, infirmary spokeswoman Adelaida De La Cerda said. Benitez, 38, was a teenager actor who had unimaginative roles under the monicker Mark Everett in such 1980s get on as "Galactica 1980" and "Pee-Wee's Big Adventure.
" He was credited as "heavy metal boy" in the 1988 talkie "Stand and Deliver." However, his tear went nowhere and so did his life. In 2000, he was arrested on panacea charges and in 2003 he was arrested for hiding tricky guns in his son's stroller, supreme to his belief and a decree of probation, according to the TV show "America's Most Wanted," which obtained videos of his questioning by authorities in those cases and often featured his case.
Benitez vanished with the servant after his girlfriend and Benjamin's mother, Stephanie Spears, was beaten to destruction with a dumbbell on June 21, 2004, in their haunt in Hawthorne, a Los Angeles suburb. He was charged with eradication and a form detain assurance was issued in 2005. The next year a federal apprehension promise was issued after he was charged with criminal exit to shun prosecution.
After Spears' killing, photographs of Benitez and the slave were placed on draw off cartons and on the Web neighbourhood of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, said FBI spokeswoman Laura Eimiller. She said agents were uneasy for the boy's shelter because Benitez had been known to energetic in squalor. He had several known aliases and was rumored to communicate in Spanish, German, French and Cantonese, according to the FBI. A $20,000 retribution was offered for facts unrivalled to his capture.
On Monday afternoon, he showed up at a to mall in El Monte, a blue-collar Los Angeles suburb of about 116,000 family less than 25 miles from Hawthorne. Nobody outwardly knew the straggle-haired outlander with the young gentleman was a wanted man. El Monte the Detective Ralph Batres said an gendarme was called to the sphere at about 2:30 p.m. to scrutinize a story of a suspicious, perhaps outcast servant with a child.
"When officers arrived at the location, they found the chap who produced a handgun. The mankind grabbed the manful girl described in the hail and placed him between himself and the officer," the Sheriff's Department disclosure said. Benitez took the urchin into the restaurant and locked himself in the bathroom with the boy. Nearby streets were evacuated.
During two hours of negotiations, Benitez "threatened to conclusion himself, the juvenile, and any responding officers," the assertion said. Police cast-off a flash-bang mark of cadency as they entered the restroom in an have a go to save the c knave and take Benitez, it said. The declaration said "an officer-involved shooting occurred." It did not articulate whether Benitez fired his weapons. Authorities said Benitez's mother, Alina Elizabeth Velsaco, was being sought. ___ Associated Press Writer Robert Jablon in Los Angeles contributed to this report.
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