Off-duty deputies subdue knife-wielding parolee outside Pomona courthouse

Daily Bulletin — Two off-duty Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies confronted, disarmed and detained a belligerent man who showed up at Pomona Superior Court with a butcher knife in his hand earlier this week, authorities said Friday.

The incident took place Monday morning outside the courthouse at 400 Civic Center Plaza, sheriff’s Sgt. Bob Boese said.

Off-duty deputies J. Tien and V. Velazquez had just finished testifying in unrelated cases and exited the courthouse “when they saw a male Hispanic adult walking toward the front entrance holding an 8-inch butcher’s knife in his hand,” the sergeant said.

The man, later identified as 29-year-old parolee and transient Jeralme Cuevas, became agitated when approached by the off-duty deputies and refused to respond to initial attempts to speak to him, officials said.

“After a couple of attempts to contact the man, the man yelled, ‘Are you guys going to take me back to prison? I need to go back to prison or I’ll kill somebody,’” Boese said.

The deputies held Cuevas at gunpoint as they persuaded him to drop the blade and lie down on the ground, Boese said. They detained him until Pomona police arrived, and he was booked on suspicion of making criminal threats and brandishing a weapon in a threatening manner, authorities said. continue reading...