POMONA, Calif.—The man accused of fatally shooting a Baldwin Park police officer and another man in May made his initial court appearance on June 11 and was ordered to be held in jail without bail while awaiting arraignment on July 31.
Eduardo Roberto Medina-Berumen, 22, is charged with two counts of murder and other charges stemming from the May 31 shooting that killed 35-year-old Officer Samuel Riveros—a nine-year department veteran—along with the shooting minutes earlier of 43-year-old Darius Wong, a married father of two young daughters.
Medina-Berumen, who was injured in the gun battle, appeared in court in a wheelchair and agreed to a deputy public defender’s request that his arraignment be postponed.
The murder charges include the special circumstance allegations of multiple murders and murder of a peace officer that could open him up to a possible death sentence if convicted as charged. District Attorney Nathan Hochman said last week that his office will decide later whether to seek capital punishment.
Medina-Berumen is also charged with one count of possession of an assault rifle and two counts of attempted murder involving two other Baldwin Park police officers, including Officer Anthony Pimentel, whom Hochman said was wounded when he was “hit by shards of glass that came from a bullet that we believe hit a windshield or a side windshield.”
Riveros was part of a response dispatched at about 7:15 p.m. May 31 to the 4200 block of Filhurst Avenue, a few blocks east of the 605 Freeway, regarding a man with a rifle, the sheriff’s department reported.
Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna said the Baldwin Park Police Department received a report of a man armed with a rifle who was shooting, saying that Pimentel and fellow Officer Alfredo Leal—who are identified as the victims in the attempted murder charges—arrived at the scene first in separate cars and were “immediately fired upon by this suspect who had a rifle.”
“An officer-involved shooting occurred at that time and Officer Pimentel was injured as a result of the suspect’s gunfire,” Luna said, adding that Riveros arrived soon after, and he was “tragically struck by the suspect’s gunfire and unfortunately that ended up being a fatal gunshot.”
