Attorney: Officer who shot 3 in Costco was attacked first

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A lawyer says a Los Angeles policeman who opened fire inside a Costco was attacked without warning and briefly knocked out as he held his year-old child.

The officer’s on paid leave while police investigate Friday’s shooting inside the warehouse store in Corona that killed 32-year-old Kenneth French of Riverside and critically wounded his parents.

A cousin has said that French had the intellectual capacity of a teenager and couldn’t speak but had never been violent.

On Monday, however, the officer’s attorney, David Winslow, says the policeman was holding his toddler son and sampling food when he was struck from behind without warning and briefly knocked out.

Winslow says when the officer came to, he felt the lives of himself and his son were in danger and he began firing.

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