Los Angeles-area police have arrested Carlos Medina, of Torrance, California, in connection with the fatal shooting of Los Angeles auxiliary bishop David O’Connell.
LA County Sheriff Robert Luna said during a press conference on Monday that Mr Medina, 65, claimed the bishop owed him money, and that Mr Medina had previously done work on the clergyman’s home. He is the husband of the bishop’s housekeeper,
“My heart grieves,” Mr Luna said, of the shooting that took place on Saturday. “Although I personally did not know the bishop, I cannot tell you how man phone calls I’ve received over the last 48 hours from people who have worked with him in different capacities. This man, this bishop, made a huge difference in our community. He was loved.”
Police officers located Mr Medina based off the account of a local tipster, Sheriff Luna said.
The Torrance man was allegedly acting strange and irrationally over the weekend following the date of the shooting, and made comments about the bishop owing him money.
Mr Medina allegedly left the Los Angeles area for central California, before returning early on Monday morning.
Police officers surrounded the home for hours, and eventually Mr Medina surrendered, the sheriff said. It is unclear whether he has a lawyer. No formal charges have been brought.
Officers later found two guns as well as other evidence inside the home.
An investigation at the home of Bishop O’Connell showed no signs of forced entry, police said.
Jail records indicate Mr Medina’s bail has been set at $2,000,000. The Independent is working to determine whether he has legal representation.
Officials mourned the slain bishop.
“Everywhere he went, whether it be East Los Angeles or here in the suburbs, the bishop touched everyone,” State Senator Bob Archuleta said at the press conference on Monday. “He had the ability to walk the streets everywhere he went, bringing everyone together.”
He was remembered as a passionate advocate for the poor and for Los Angeles’s large population of Latin American immigrants. A gathered crowd at the press conference chuckled as a former colleague of O’Connell at the Catholic church remembered him as “fluent in Spanish, with an Irish accent.”
O’Connell was found on Saturday afternoon at his home in Hacienda Heights. Coroners confirmed he had been shot in the upper body, police said.
Bishop O’Connell was born in County Cork, Ireland, on 16 July 1953, according to The New York Times. He was made an auxiliary bishop in 2015, according to the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.
In July 2015, Bishop O’Connell told the Archdiocese of Los Angeles outlet Angelus that working as a South Central LA pastor had been “the great joy” of his life.
“It’s been a great privilege, a great blessing to be given these parishes all these years, to be pastor all these years,” he added. “The people have touched my heart the way they are sincere.”
He chaired the Southern California immigration Task Force, coordinating the church’s response to the spike in migrants coming from Central America.
“For me, it really is a labor of love because this is, I think, what our schools and parishes are all about,” he said in 2019, according to Angelus. “Not just for unaccompanied minors but for all our children. There’s an epidemic of hurting children, even the ones who have too much. They feel we’ve abandoned them. And the migrant youths have become a metaphor for our whole society.”
Bishop O’Connell worked in the 1990s after the police beating of Rodney King to calm relations between residents in neighbourhoods affected by the ensuing riots and local law enforcement.
