A man was shot and killed when he interrupted three people who were trying to remove a catalytic converter from a vehicle in downtown Los Angeles early Saturday, police said.
The man encountered the suspects around 3:25 a.m. near Pico Boulevard and Hope Street, said Officer Jader Chaves, spokesman for the Los Angeles Police Department. One of them shot him before the three fled in a vehicle, Chaves said.
The victim, believed to be between 30 and 35 years old, was taken to a local hospital and pronounced dead.
No additional details were immediately available.
The catalytic converter, an exhaust emissions control device typically found on a vehicle's undercarriage, contains precious metals such as rhodium, palladium and platinum. Thieves can make hundreds of dollars by selling them to auto parts suppliers or scrap yards, where they can melt them down and extract the high-value metals.
Catalytic converter thefts spiked in California during the COVID-19 pandemic, which some attributed to increased economic hardship. The trend prompted new state laws that make it illegal for recyclers to buy the part from anyone other than the legal owner or an authorized dealer and increase penalties for buyers who fail to certify that a catalytic converter was not stolen.
Former Times staff writer Faith Pinho and Times staff writer Hannah Wiley contributed to this report.
