Daughter of L.A. police union boss involved in shooting of pellet gun-wielding woman
When Jacqueline McBride and two other Los Angeles police officers shot and killed a woman with a replica revolver in Silver Lake last week, McBride became the third member of her immediate family to shoot someone in the line of duty.
Officers from the Los Angeles Police Department’s Rampart Division responded to a call around 7:55 p.m. Wednesday that a woman in a trench coat pointed a gun at passersby in the area around Silver Lake Boulevard and Temple Street, according to a police report of the incident.
Upon arrival, they found Mariela Cardenas, who matched the suspect’s description, at the 101 highway overpass, police said.
According to police, Cardenas ignored orders to drop the gun and instead pointed it at the officers, who fired at them. But after the shooting, they saw her holding a bullet gun that looked like a revolver, with a black barrel and a brownish grip, according to a photo on the LAPD website.
Cardenas was taken to a nearby hospital, where she was pronounced dead.
The Times could not independently verify the department’s version of events. The LAPD has up to 45 days to release footage from the officers’ body cameras and other video sources, which could shed more light on the events leading up to the shooting.
Emails for Jacqueline McBride and the other two officers involved – Miguel Salazar and Preston Moseby – were not immediately answered on Monday. McBride joined the LAPD in 2020.
Most officers go their entire careers without firing their weapons. A 2016 Pew Research Center survey found that just over a quarter of officers have fired a gun while on duty.
But with last Wednesday’s shooting, three members of the McBride family are now responsible for the shooting of eight people.
McBride’s father, Jamie McBride, outspoken vice president of the Los Angeles Police Protective League, was involved in at least six police shootings in the first 11 years of his career, none of them fatal. His other daughter, Toni McBride — an Instagram celebrity and model who joined the LAPD in 2017 — fatally shot Daniel Hernandez in South Los Angeles in 2020 after he charged at her with a knife.
After a months-long internal investigation, a civilian police commission overseeing the LAPD found that the last two of her six shots were off-policy. At the time of the incident, Hernandez, 38, was lying on the floor. But Toni was not fired or prosecuted for the shooting.
Earlier this year, California Atty. General Rob Bonta’s office cleared McBride of wrongdoing in the incident. But the ruling was met with skepticism because it was based in part on the “expert opinion” of a police usage consultant whose work has been criticized as illegal for years.
The case drew a lot of attention, in part because of McBride’s controversial personality as a sharpshooting social media influencer — where her critics say she glorifies police brutality. Another factor was her father’s influence in police circles. Jamie is one of nine directors of the powerful Los Angeles Police Protective League, the union representing rank and file officers on labor and discipline issues.
Jamie posted a series of Facebook videos in early June celebrating his fellow officers as they took on protesters. The videos, titled “Hold the Line,” featured lines of cops staring down, activists screaming, and cops posing in front of graffiti threatening violence against “pigs.” One of McBride’s pro-police videos comes with a soundtrack, AC/DC’s “Shoot to Thrill.”
Toni also appears in the videos, smiling and decked out in full riot gear. She is a popular figure among some gun aficionados, with multiple online videos featuring her shoot away at targets, sometimes in a T-shirt with the inscription ‘Warrior’.
Unlike her sister Toni, Jacqueline McBride seems to avoid the spotlight.
Reached by phone on Monday, Jaime McBride denounced what he saw as unfair coverage of police shootings over the years by The Times.
“The bottom line is that no one wants to take someone’s life, but if someone points a gun at you, an officer has to respond to protect their life,” he said, declining further comment.
The incident will be reviewed by LAPD investigators and findings will be presented to the LAPD’s civilian oversight committee. Such investigations usually take several months to a year.
Times staff writer Nathan Solis contributed to this report.