Deshawn Trenton Adams, 24

July 22, 2007, 7:05 a.m.

Deshawn Adams, 24, a black man, was shot six times by Gardena police officers in front of the Yoshinoya restaurant at 1825 W. Redondo Beach Blvd. in Gardena, at about 6 a.m. Sunday, July 22. He died about an hour later at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center.

Sheriff's Lt. Larry Lincoln said Adams walked into this Yoshinoya restaurant, open 24 hours, and menaced customers and employees with a gun. He hit one employee, a woman, in the head twice with the gun, and took a bag of money. Someone was able to hit a robbery-alarm button as this was going on. Several Gardena units responded. Two Gardena police officers confronted him as he walked out of the restaurant with the money. They said Adams produced the handgun, Lincoln said, and the officers shot him. Adams' gun turned out to be a replica -- so authentic-looking that "we thought it was a real firearm until we took it to the lab," Lincoln said.

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Eight reader comments

KKay,

We all have the right to ask God for forgiveness but there has to be meaning and honesty and faithfulness and true repent I don't think that in the last moments/seconds of his life that Adams had time to do all that and to have pure heart. As is stated: If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth. That's the part that was left out of your posting. We cannot commit sin at will and the say he was a son of God. As a woman of God knowing that he hit another woman how can you possibly defend his actions? What makes him a son of God? Certainly his actions and his treatment of his fellow man does not speak to knowing God. You seem to think that this free will he exercised is all forgiven and that he some how ended up in heaven...so if given the same set of events but it was you that got hit in the head and had a gun (real or not) pointed at you, would your feelings for the subject be the same? Or would you call on your faith and extend forgiveness?

— You gotta be right with God before you die June 20, 2014 at 2:24 a.m.