A wrongful death suit has been filed on behalf of a 6-year-old Azusa girl whose double-amputee father was fatally shot by Huntington Park police officers in 2023, alleging that the man was not a threat to the officers.
HP officers shot Anthony Lowe on Jan. 26, 2023, after responding to a stabbing call. When Lowe was approached near the scene of the call, Lowe -- who had both of his legs amputated and used a wheelchair -- was armed with a 12- inch long butcher knife, according to HP police.
The Los Angeles Superior Court lawsuit was filed March 6 on behalf of the girl, who also alleges assault and battery, negligence, civil rights violations and failure to furnish medical care. The plaintiff seeks unspecified compensatory damages as well as punitive damages against the officers.
The suit contends Lowe was suffering from a mental crisis and that although he had a knife in one hand, he was retreating and was more than six feet away when he was shot and therefore not a threat to the officers, one of whom was involved in another fatal shooting in the skid row section of Los Angeles in 2015.
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One of the officers had overturned Lowe's wheelchair, but he righted himself and began his hobbling retreat before being shot 11 times, the suit states.
Last August, Lowe's relatives reached a settlement with the city in a separate legal action involving access to the names and personnel records of the HP officers involved in the shooting. The city turned over the information and paid the family $6,900 in attorneys' fees.
Lowe's family members said the decedent's legs were amputated after a 2022 altercation with law enforcement in Texas.
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